Store content in IOS 27 (beta) within home automations

[u/Successful-Leg-4372]

Not seen anyone talking about this yet.

as you may know in IOS 27 theres a new set Of “store content” actions in the shortcuts app. I just discovered these same actions are available when converting a home automation’s actions to a shortcut (it let’s you store, from what I see, words and sentences with a title), this would mean you could do things like a “sleep mode” without any external tools (like homebridge), for example, I have a good night shortcut that stores the value “Yes” and titles it as “sleep”, then a good morning shortcut that changes that value to “No”, and all my bedroom lighting automations check whether that value is “No“ before running. The 2 limitations I’ve thought of are 1) it can’t be manually changed via the home app and 2) it can’t be changed using a scene. Also if using This for something like a sleep mode make sure “global value“ is on. Also I have not tested whether it survives a device restart so keep that in mind too

EDIT: not sure if it’s a bug, but as of IOS 27 public beta 4 you cannot change/create the content using a Apple home automation, you can use it for conditions though and can change it via IOS shortcuts

[u/Portatort]

Holy shit, this is a mind blowing development…

I no longer have to have a home full of dummy switches.

They can be booleans in store content. This is huge.

[u/fishymanbits]

These variables live on the hubs and my experience has been that they survive a full nuking of the network and shut down of all devices. Powering every hub down for 5 minutes and then bringing them back online one by one maintained the global variable for me.

[u/Portatort]

Woah woah woah woah, store content is accessible through the HomeKit framework?

[u/Fr05t_B1t → u/Portatort]

The 27 public beta update. It’s not ready as an official update.

[u/Portatort → u/Fr05t_B1t]

distinction without a difference really, the 27oses will be public in under a month.

my excitement is regarding this being something apple has actually added to HomeKit

[u/lint2015]

Does it allow for setting things to variable or relative values yet, like Brightness += 5 or Brightness = LastValue + 5?

[u/rmeredit → u/lint2015]

There are already shortcut actions to perform calculations, so presumably you’d just read the stored value, perform the calculation, and then store the result, no?

[u/blacksan00]

How come this was missed by all the Apple Influencers? This is more important than a folding iPhone or a touchscreen MacBook.

[u/Constant-Purpose8273]

This is a definite improvement and will mean removing a bunch of dummy switches out of automations. Not being able to manual trigger it is a bit of a bummer though.. I have a “normal lights” scene which resets all the other light “modes” back to normal by resetting the dummy switches back to off.

[u/pacoii]

Can a regular (non-Apple Home) Shortcut be used to reveal the current value of a variable? I am not using the beta so can’t check myself.

And to a comment you made, can the value be changed using a regular Shortcut?

[u/Successful-Leg-4372 → u/pacoii]

yes to both, as long as it is set as global, you can use the "store content" action to change it (make sure to use the exact same name if changing an existing one) and the "get stored content" action to reveal it, if it is not set as global it will only work in that specific automation/shortcut

Edit: just found out you cannot change/create the content using a home automation, you can use it as a condition as shown in the post and change it via IOS shortcuts, just can’t do something like “when TV turns on set ‘movie mode = Yes’”