Possible way to find if a light was turned on by automation or not?

[maisun]

Well it sounds simple but I couldn’t seem to find a way.
Long story short, I’d like my light automation to only turn off light when the light was turned on by automation. In other words, if the light is turned on manually it should not be turned off by the automation. In activity I can easily see when the light was on by which automation, but this info is not exposed when the automation is later triggered.
I know I can add a input Boolean helper, it’s not a perfect solution and hence would like to ask maybe there is another smart way to make it work?

[luxia]

Take a look here:

How to use context

By checking three conditions you can tell if it was an automation, a physical device or a person performing an action in a dashboard that changed an entity. This can be useful if you need to know if a person or an automation did something, e.g. were the lights turned on automatically or by a person operating a physical switch or dashboard control? The three context ids and how they relate to the three causes are: [9f58d4c26ecbf53ddbb35cca88956ede8502da41] User mbuscher provided this automatio…

[tom_l]

You can save the turn on context in a sensor.

How to use context

By checking three conditions you can tell if it was an automation, a physical device or a person performing an action in a dashboard that changed an entity. This can be useful if you need to know if a person or an automation did something, e.g. were the lights turned on automatically or by a person operating a physical switch or dashboard control? The three context ids and how they relate to the three causes are: [9f58d4c26ecbf53ddbb35cca88956ede8502da41] User mbuscher provided this automatio…

Edit: too slow.

[maisun]

Thanks both - I have already bookmarked the post and it was very helpful!
One thing I don’t like to is create a helper just to keep history (in Tom’s example a mode selector between Auto and Manual). In my simple mind anything done manually should just not be overridden by automation.
With context id I need to remember the action for later automation - it would be nicer if HA can somehow allow query Activity data of a device in the future (the data is certainly there in activity view).
For now I will just do something for each room - don’t want too many helper for each light
Have a nice weekend!

[maisun]

Find this: Home Assistant Context | Home Assistant Data Science Portal
Will dig further

[pyberg (Per Yngve Berg)]

This feature will be added in the 2026.9 version.

[maisun]

Sorry which feature do you mean?

[Edwin_D]

There is a new feature in the current beta to provide better insight in the things that caused something to happen. You can check it out now by joining the beta program or wait till next wednesday for the final release.

2026.9 Beta week

A general reminder: Beta week is not designed to fully overhaul a new feature, but to identify bugs that may be introduced with the update. If you have an issue, please let us know here! However, the developers are very active in the #beta channel of our Discord server during Beta - it’s good to hop in there if you can. To ensure things are addressed in a timely manner, be sure to also submit issues on GitHub in their proper space: Dashboard/UI/Frontend Issues Integrations/Automations/Backend/…

[tom_l]

@Edwin_D

There is a new feature in the current beta to provide better insight in the things that caused something to happen.

That’s view only. It does not help with automation.

[NathanCu (Nathan Curtis)]

Unfortunately. That and the new security views are screaming action or template for me please…

[doffen (Kristoffer Øyjord)]

one of my first automations (and still running 3 years later) runs however the entity was changed, manual or by automation.
It’s simple and has to work this way: it turns of a switch after 150ms to simulate a button press.
Just as an example on why somthing might need to be overridden by an automation even when done manually.

I like your idea for basic lighting though.