Prevent Motion Trigger to turn off light - but how?

Configuration
1

Hi all,

How can I prevent my motion triggers to start the timer before the light gets turned off?
Few of my lights get turned on by a motion detector and then turned off after 5 minutes if no activity.

Before (in openHAB) I had a dummy switch I could use as a measurement, if the value was ON, then the turn off command could not run.
I don’t know if it makes sense, but I used the switch to turn on the light and when turned on, even if the motion got triggered, then after 5 minutes the if statement wasn’t true because the light switch was still ON and not OFF.

- alias: '[Hobbyroom] Motion/Lux Turn On Gateway LED'
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.motion_sensor_xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
  condition:
    condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.illumination_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    below: 100
  action:
  - service: light.turn_on
    entity_id: light.gateway_light_34ce0088ed14
    data:
      brightness: 5
      color_name: red

- alias: '[Hobbyroom] Motion/Lux Tun Off Gateway LED'
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.motion_sensor_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    from: 'on'
    to: 'off'
    for:
      minutes: 5
  action:
  - service: light.turn_off
    entity_id: light.gateway_light_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Is this somehow doable?

2

You could define an input_boolean, which would look like a switch in the UI, and use that as a condition for your automation.

1 Like
3

Sounds like an idea yes!
Can you perhaps show me a few more lines of code (noob here :blush:) ?

4

I’m just on my phone now, so forgive me if this isn’t the exact syntax.

input_boolean:
  disable_motionsensor_automation:
    name: Disable motion sensor automation

And in your automation:

condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.disable_motionsensor_automation
    state: 'off'

Then add that input boolean to your UI somewhere.

5

Argh yes! Looks good.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I need more boolean (switches), will I just add those beneath like this?

input_boolean:
  disable_motionsensor_automation:
    name: Disable motion sensor automation
  disable_montionsensor_outdoor_automation:
    name: Disable motion sensor outdoor automation

… and so on?

6

I guess if you have seperate automations that you want to be able to control seperately, then yes. Otherwise you can use the same boolean to disable them all.

7

Hmm that will give me some small problems, because I would need more than one switch. I was hoping that I could create more booleans. One for each room where I would need it.

So both to prevent the motion trigger but also to just turn on the light on or off if manually pressed.

8

Sorry, I thought that’s what I was saying. You can have as many booleans as you want. However, I’m not sure if there’s a good way to tell if the light was manually switched on or turned on by your automation. It would be very dependent on your setup.

9

Well it was… My bad :blush:.
But was my code correct if I wanted to have more than one or does it get build up in another way?

To me it’s fine, as long as it is doable!

Thanks man!

10

I would look at the official documentation for it just to make sure I used the correct format: