How to capture a trigger event in UI

Configuration
1

I’m a new user to HA and trying to figure things out…
I have a simple binary helper sensor that combines motion from cameras and philips hue outdoor motion sensors. I want to have this turn lights on when motion is detected and at the same time start a timer to turn lights offf after X mins.

The problem is how the heck do I capture the timer.finished event?

As far as I can tell I can easily add the timer entity in automations but it’s missing the finished option. So I’m assuming to capture the change to timer.finished I need to do this some other way?

I would expect I can just create a new automation, use the timer as the entity and then select “timer.finished” to do things… However this does not seem to be the case so what am I missing?

2

You don’t need a timer. See Motion activated lights automation

3

You would use an Event trigger.

4

Thanks. That works fine for basics but what I’m trying to achieve in the end is to have a single timer that gets reset or disabled by multiple different things (motion sensors,buttons/switches, state of the home etc). Hence I’d really like to understand how to capture that timer.finished event to make life simpler… Also I’m assuming it should be something quite basic.

5

You know what they say about assumptions…

If you look at the basic examples presented in the Timer integration docs, you will see that the suggested method is to use a Event trigger.