Take Turns - Home Assistant Custom Integration

A Home Assistant integration that manages rotating lists of people, useful for tracking whose turn it is for chores, bedtime stories, choosing movies, etc.

Installation

Method 1: HACS (Recommended)

1. Open HACS in Home Assistant
2. Go to "Integrations"
3. Click the three dots menu (top right) → "Custom repositories"
4. Add repository URL: https://github.com/mjaquilina/hass-take-turns
5. Select category: "Integration"
6. Click "Add"
7. Click "Download" on the Take Turns card
8. Restart Home Assistant

Method 2: Manual Installation

1. Copy the custom_components/take_turns folder to your Home Assistant config/custom_components/ directory.

2. Restart Home Assistant.

3. The integration is now ready to use!

Configuration

You can configure Take Turns in two ways:

Option 1: UI Configuration (Recommended)

1. Go to Settings → Devices & Services
2. Click + Add Integration
3. Search for "Take Turns"
4. Fill in the form:
   • Entity ID: The identifier for the sensor (e.g., bedtime_story creates sensor.bedtime_story)
   • Friendly Name: Display name (e.g., "Bedtime Story Reader")
   • People: Comma-separated list of names (e.g., "Mom, Dad, Grandma")
5. Click Submit

To edit an existing entity:

1. Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Take Turns
2. Click Configure on the entity you want to edit
3. Update the name or people list
4. Click Submit

To delete an entity:

1. Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Take Turns
2. Click the three dots menu on the entity
3. Select Delete

Option 2: YAML Configuration

Add to your configuration.yaml:

take_turns:
  bedtime_story:
    name: "Bedtime Story Reader"
    people:
      - Alice
      - Bob
      - Charlie
  
  dish_duty:
    name: "Dish Duty"
    people:
      - Mike
      - Sarah
      - Jenny

Restart Home Assistant to load the configuration.

Note: You can mix both methods. YAML and UI configurations work together seamlessly.

Usage

Entities Created

For each configured item, a sensor entity is created:

• Entity ID: sensor.<your_key> (e.g., sensor.bedtime_story, sensor.dish_duty)
• State: Current person's name
• Attributes:
  • people: Full list of people
  • current_index: Current position in the list (0-based)
  • friendly_name: Display name

Services

take_turns.next_turn

Advances to the next person in the list (wraps around to the beginning after the last person).

Parameters:

• entity_id (required): The entity to advance (e.g., bedtime_story)

Example Service Call:

service: take_turns.next_turn
data:
  entity_id: bedtime_story

take_turns.set_person

Sets the current person to a specific individual from the list.

Parameters:

• entity_id (required): The entity to modify (e.g., bedtime_story)
• person (required): The name of the person to set as current (must match exactly)

Example Service Call:

service: take_turns.set_person
data:
  entity_id: bedtime_story
  person: Charlie

Automation Example

Advance automatically every night at 8 PM:

automation:
  - alias: "Rotate Bedtime Story Reader"
    trigger:
      - platform: time
        at: "20:00:00"
    action:
      - service: take_turns.next_turn
        data:
          entity_id: bedtime_story

Dashboard Button Example

Add a button to your dashboard to manually advance:

type: button
name: Next Person
icon: mdi:rotate-right
tap_action:
  action: call-service
  service: take_turns.next_turn
  data:
    entity_id: bedtime_story

Display Current Person

Use an entity card to show who's currently up:

type: entity
entity: sensor.bedtime_story
name: Tonight's Story Reader

Or use a markdown card for more detail:

type: markdown
content: >
  **Bedtime Story:** {{ states('sensor.bedtime_story') }}
  
  **Dish Duty:** {{ states('sensor.dish_duty') }}

Configuration Options

Each take_turns entity supports:

• people (required): List of names to rotate through
• name (optional): Friendly display name (defaults to formatted entity_id)

Notes

• The integration persists state to disk automatically. After a Home Assistant restart, it resumes from the last person.
• State is stored in .storage/take_turns.state.json in your Home Assistant config directory.
• The list wraps around automatically (after the last person, it goes back to the first).
• If you change the people list in configuration.yaml and the saved index is out of bounds, it resets to the first person.