Help with automation turning off all lights

Configuration
1

I have the below automation which runs at night when I turn off my living room TV.

It’s meant to turn off all the lights inside/outside and then turn on three specific lights for 7 mins (let the dog out, navigate up to bed).

The prob is the first step of turning off all lights (understandably) takes awhile cause that’s a lot of lights. So it may take 30-60 secs for the three lights to turn on which kind of defeats the purpose.

I can’t put the “all lights off” scene second since that’ll turn off the lights that I had turn on. I can’t put it at the end either (which is what I did at first) because my wife “doesn’t trust” that they’ll all turn off haha.

Maybe there’s no way around it but I was curious if anyone had suggestions on how to better fine tune it.

Thanks!

alias: "Evening: Living Room TV - Off"
description: ""
triggers:
  - entity_id:
      - remote.living_room_tv
    to: "off"
    trigger: state
    from: "on"
conditions:
  - condition: time
    after: "21:30:00"
actions:
  - action: scene.turn_on
    metadata: {}
    target:
      entity_id:
        - scene.all_lights_off
    data: {}
  - action: light.turn_on
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id:
        - light.deck_flood_light
        - light.upstairs_hallway_lights
        - light.kitchen_main_lights
  - delay:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 7
      seconds: 0
      milliseconds: 0
  - action: light.turn_off
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id:
        - light.deck_flood_light
        - light.upstairs_hallway_lights
        - light.kitchen_main_lights
mode: single
2

what protocol is your lights?

3

Majority are Z-Wave switches with a few Zigbee ones for my Hue bulbs…if that’s what you mean by protocol. Sorry, I’m still an HA noob

4

Yes, well, you can attempt to get multicast working. It won’t be an easy road but all your zwave lights will turn on/off at the same time.

5

Multicast is best because it is a better effect when (almost) everything turns off at once, but if that doesn’t work out for you, try creating a “most lights off” or a “get to bed” scene that doesn’t include the three specific lights. Then it could be the second action without affecting those three.

6

Make a new scene which turns off everything except those “three specific lights”, then run that scene and the other actions in parallel.

actions:
  - parallel:
      - action: scene.turn_on
        metadata: {}
        target:
          entity_id:
            - scene.all_lights_off_except_below_three
        data: {}
      - sequence:
          - action: light.turn_on
            data: {}
            target:
              entity_id:
                - light.deck_flood_light
                - light.upstairs_hallway_lights
                - light.kitchen_main_lights
          - delay:
              hours: 0
              minutes: 7
              seconds: 0
              milliseconds: 0
          - action: light.turn_off
            data: {}
            target:
              entity_id:
                - light.deck_flood_light
                - light.upstairs_hallway_lights
                - light.kitchen_main_lights

Or just make it easy on yourself and turn off all lights at the very end instead…

1 Like