Automation to turn on drive lights when phone detected near not working when one of us already home

Configuration
1

Newbie HA user here, trialling Nabu Casa as well.

We plan to install some lights to illuminate our house drive when either of us approach it during darkness. For now I am testing the setup on a couple of indoor lights, and I am ignoring the darkness requirement.

By accident, we have discovered that the action works perfectly for both of us, but only if the other one of us isn’t home already. If one of us is already home the action doesn’t do anything. We need the lights to come on even if someone is already home. Eventually the drive lights will be will timed to go off to give us long enough to park and unload the car.

I’m using our phone locations, with ‘When Home Nearest Distance is below…’

So, when either of us is approaching and at the specified distance, the lights should go on.

Thanks in advance.

Home Assistant Green

Running

Home Assistant Core 2026.1.2

Home Assistant Operating System 17.0

2

You won’t get any help without posting what your current automation is.

post it in properly formatted yaml. No screenshots.

1 Like
3

Thank you for your reply.

The issue was solved by having two seperate automations, one for each user. But I shall bear in mind your advice for any future queries I have.