My goal is to have either of our overhead garage doors opening trigger the overhead light if the light is below a certain amount for 2 minutes before turning back off. The goal is so that we don’t have to back into a dark garage at night because it can be a little bit challenging with tight spaces and tinted windows.
I created this automation in the visual editor this time so I’ll just post a picture for a quick confirmation or any notes rather than the full code. This is the first automation I’ve created using light measuring for a conditional rather than the time of day or something else static. I used a Q Sensor illuminance state of below 50 as the conditional. I really have no idea what will be the ideal brightness so I just picked this as a starting point. Happy to receive input on this as well for those that have a better idea.
Running through that in my mind, either garage door will trigger it. (Multiple items in the “trigger” section are seen as an “or” meaning that either one can trigger it and doesn’t require both items, right?) I chose “open” rather than “opening” as this would prevent the light from turning on until the garage is fully open but I may change this to “opening” instead so it turns the light on right as the garage door(s) starts opening to prevent any issues from triggering delays.
The conditional is “below 50” which seems to be above darker #'s I’ve seen which were in the single digits but not as bright as it is when it’s mid-day and one of the garage doors is open which is in the hundreds. Again, if there’s a better or more widely accepted # as a “good” value for such an event, I’m here for it.
The “then do” portion will turn on the overhead garage light immediately, wait for 2-minutes and then check to see if the motion sensor hasn’t reported motion in the last 2 minutes. If it hasn’t then it will turn off the garage light. If it has, I assume it will recheck or do I need to put something in there to recheck again after a couple of minutes, or ??
This is the part I’m probably most concerned about as it kind of seems like if there has been motion still within the last 2-minutes that it will just end the whole thing there rather than re-checking. I may need to put something in that causes it to recheck every minute or two for activity before actually turning off the light and ending the automation, right?
There may be a better way to go about this entirely that I’m missing too. Happy to receive any construction criticism about my methods as I learn more about this stuff. I’m also planning to add some more automations concerning the garage lights. These will be triggered by motion and/or interior doors opening at certain times of the day or certain brightness as well.
Would I be better off putting all of those in one lengthy master garage light automation or just keeping them separate? My knee-jerk reaction is to separate them all out but I’m newer to all of this and that may not be ideal. My plan was to just get this one up and running and then add each one of those individually making sure they all play nicely together and there are no conflicts. Seemed like a logical approach to me anyway.
Thanks!