Templates
Thermostats, alarm panels, gates and irrigation built from the inputs, outputs and sensors you already have.
A template turns things the controller already has — a temperature sensor and a relay, a few door contacts and a siren, a gate relay and a limit switch — into one device that behaves like the real thing. You do not wire anything new: you tell boneIO which inputs, outputs and sensors belong together, and it runs the logic itself, with or without Home Assistant.
Version 1.6 has four kinds:
Thermostat
Keeps a room at a set temperature by switching a heating relay.
Alarm Panel
Zones of door, window and motion sensors, arming modes, PIN codes and a siren.
Gate Cover
A driveway gate, garage door, barrier or wicket driven by relay pulses, with contact sensors.
Irrigation
Watering zones one after another, with schedules, water sources and pump timing.
Every template appears in Home Assistant by itself (through MQTT discovery) and on the controller's own Templates page, where you use it day to day — see Templates page.
Adding a template
- Open Settings → Control → Templates
- Click Add New. A window asks What would you like to add? — pick Thermostat, Alarm Panel, Gate Cover or Irrigation
- Fill in the form. What it asks for depends on the kind — each page above goes through its form field by field
- Save
Saving takes effect without restarting the controller.
Every form starts with the same three fields:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name (Display Name on the thermostat and alarm forms) | The name shown in Home Assistant and on the Templates page. |
| ID (Entity ID on the gate and irrigation forms) | The identifier used in MQTT topics and Home Assistant. Leave it empty and the panel makes one from the name. |
| Area / Room | Puts the device in an area, so Home Assistant groups it with the rest of that room. |
An ID made from the name contains only the letters a–z, digits and underscores — accented letters are replaced with _ (the Polish "Łazienka" becomes azienka). If you want a readable ID, type it yourself.
Changing the ID of a template that is already in use makes it a new device: Home Assistant shows the old entity as unavailable and dashboards and automations that pointed at it have to be updated. Choose the ID once.
The list in Settings
Settings → Control → Templates lists all templates with their icon, name, ID, kind and area. From the list you can:
- edit or delete a template,
- duplicate one with the copy button — the copy gets
_copyadded to its ID and opens for editing, which is the quickest way to make a second thermostat or gate, - for irrigation, copy a ready Home Assistant dashboard for that controller to the clipboard (Sections layout).
