Motion activated lights automation

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24

If you insist so much you can check history of your switch and see from there can you determine was switch manually turned on/off or not. Based on that you can maybe do something about it.
Or just buy presence sensor.

25

You have not said that a presence sensor will actually do what I want, yet you seem adamant that I should buy one - sorry, but this confuses me.

I donā€™t think a presence sensor is appropriate for this situation - the light is outside on my front porch and so is the motion sensor. I want the light to turn on if a car comes into my driveway, an animal runs across my porch etc.

26

You could explain it. I thought that you are talking about indoor situations.

27

I think I have this figured out. I found enkama/hass-variables and use it to set a binary sensor that I can test to determine if the light had been turned on by automation. I now have two automations and initial tests look promising. Any feedback appreciated.

alias: Front Porch Sensor Light - on
description: Turn on front porch light if motion detected
triggers:
  - entity_id: binary_sensor.node_2_motion_detection
    to: "on"
    trigger: state
conditions:
  - condition: sun
    before: sunrise
    after: sunset
  - condition: state
    entity_id: light.front_porch_light_switch
    state: "off"
actions:
  - target:
      entity_id: light.front_porch_light_switch
    action: light.turn_on
    data: {}
  - target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.bsw01
    data:
      value: "true"
    action: variable.update_binary_sensor
mode: single


alias: Front Porch Sensor Light - off
description: >-
  Turn off front porch light if no motion detected and it was turned on by
  automation
triggers:
  - entity_id: binary_sensor.node_2_motion_detection
    to: "off"
    for:
      minutes: 2
    trigger: state
conditions:
  - condition: sun
    before: sunrise
    after: sunset
  - condition: state
    entity_id: light.front_porch_light_switch
    state: "on"
  - condition: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.bsw01
    state: "on"
actions:
  - target:
      entity_id: light.front_porch_light_switch
    action: light.turn_off
    data: {}
  - target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.bsw01
    data:
      value: "false"
    action: variable.update_binary_sensor
mode: single

Edit: while re-reading my post to check for typos I found my first update - Iā€™m going to remove the ā€œsunā€ condition from the ā€œoffā€ automation. Itā€™s not needed and thereā€™s a very small chance the ā€œonā€ automation will be triggered 1 minute before sunrise and the light would then stay on all day.

28

This automation is awesome. It works even if you have a smart switch in the room.

Simple and efficient!

29

You donā€™t even need the helper used in the condition.

Since you use 2 automations, why not programmatically en-/dis-able the motion automation, when using the switch,

30

Probably because you will have to make template sensor that will determine did you turn light switch manually on/off. It is probably possible but not that easy to do.

31

Itā€™s taken me a while to get my head around what you might be suggesting here and once I figured it out I realised that @ddaniel is replying to your suggestion and heā€™s right.

My whole setup, for this scenario, is one simple smart switch (Zooz ZEN71), one motion sensor (Zooz ZSE70) and one dumb exterior flood light. If I en/disable the automation when the switch is used I canā€™t, easily, determine if the switch was used physically, manually through the Home Assistant app or automatically through this automation. As far as I can see the same on/off state change happens in each of these situations.

32

I didnā€™t take that into considerationā€¦it was not part of the original request.
But ofc, you are right :wink: