Last year when I was first starting out with HomeAssistant, I had my lights turning on at sundown and turning off at midnight. That was great, but it was just a little bit ahead of a glorified timer. One night shortly before Christmas, we had a storm and all of my outdoor lighting went out due wet wiring. I thought I had it all taped up, but evidently not. So I spent Christmas eve trying to find out which fuse was blown and then trying to find somewhere open that had one of those little bitty 3A fuses. This year I upped my game a little.
We had a Rainbird sprinkler system installed in the late fall. With the recent rollout of the Rainbird component and a upgrade that allows it to report on the rainbird rain sensor hanging from my gutter, my outdoor lights turn on at sunset unless the rain sensor says we have had a recent rain event. This is better in my case than just checking with the weather because our yard doesn’t drain very well and the sensor takes longer to dry out and report that it’s ok to water again. Well if it’s ok to water, then it’s probably ok to turn on my lights (we don’t water between November and March.
Next year, I may integrate in a soil moisture sensor to drive the rainbird and my decorations as well.
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