Question about automation

Configuration
1

I’ve got my automation for my outside lights to be disable when I manually turn the lights on and to be re-enable when I turn the lights of. My question is, when the automation activates the lights it then disables the automation. I’m pretty sure that I need to setup a script, just not sure about how.

Here’s my automations, firstly is the outside lights trigger from Blue Iris and the second part is the manual over ride.

- alias: Turn on south/sw  lights when there is movement
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_frontclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_eastclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_garageclone
    to: 'on'
  condition: 
   - condition: state
     entity_id: sun.sun
     state: 'below_horizon'
  action:
    service: switch.turn_on
    entity_id:
      - switch.front_door_switch
      - switch.south_west_switch

- alias: Turn off south/sw lights 8 seconds after last movement
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_frontclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_eastclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_garageclone
    to: 'off'
    for:
      seconds: 8
  action:
    service: switch.turn_off
    entity_id:
      - switch.front_door_switch
      - switch.south_west_switch

and

- alias: Turn off Outside Lights Automations when Lights Manually Turned On
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id:
        - switch.south_west_switch
        - switch.back_door_switch
        - switch.front_door_switch
      to: 'on'
  action:
    - service: input_boolean.turn_off
      entity_id: input_boolean.outside_lights_manually_on
    - service : automation.turn_off
      entity_id:
        - automation.turn_off_northsw_lights_8_seconds_after_last_movement
        - automation.turn_off_southsw_lights_8_seconds_after_last_movement  

- alias: Turn on Outside Lights Automations when Lights Manually Turned Off
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id:
        - switch.south_west_switch
        - switch.back_door_switch
        - switch.front_door_switch
      to: 'off'
  action:
    - service: input_boolean.turn_on
      entity_id: input_boolean.outside_lights_manually_on
    - service : automation.turn_on
      entity_id:
        - automation.turn_off_northsw_lights_8_seconds_after_last_movement
        - automation.turn_off_southsw_lights_8_seconds_after_last_movement

Thanks in advance for any help

2

I’m trying to understand what you’re doing here but I don’t get it.

Is it that you want to have an automation to turn lights on and off after sunset but only if you didn’t manually turn them on or manually turn them off?

3

I want the cameras to actuate the lights, if motion is detected ( this has worked well for 6 months) and the wife wants the lights to stay on, when she turns the switch on manually. As it is now, they’ll go off in 8 seconds because of the automation. So I setup an input boolean, which disables the automation when we manually turn the switch on and when we turn switch off, it enables the automation. The problem is when the automation turns the lights on, it then disables the automation and the lights stay on. Sorry if I was confusing in the initial description and hopefully not now, lol/

4

I’ve tried to adapt the settings in the last post in this discussion, to no avail.

5

I think the best way to do it is to use input_boolean for lights automated rather than manual. If the motion detector sees movement and the lights are off, turn on lights and set input_boolean to on, then when motion stops, make sure that switch is on, if so turn it and the lights off.

2 Likes
6

Agreed. I think this is the simpler way to do it.

7

Although this works, it does not let you manually control the lights when they are on by the automation.
ie. when the light is on and i want to keep it on, i will need to wait for the automation to turn them off, then turn them on again.
Right?

8

@motoolfan i have posted a revised option over there, which i think covers all the posibilities (including interupting the automatic operation with the manual switch), have a look if you want

9

Thanks for the help guys, I’ll give your suggestions a try this evening.

10

What kind of switch are you using? If it supports multi tap that will make this much easier.

11

Interesting, I’m using the GE Z-Wave 12727.

12

Those don’t seem to he compatible, so you’d need some other source to tell them to stay on, possibly the lights in the room the switch is in? Or a dash button/z-wave remote.

13

I do have an extra dash button that I’m not using.

14

I’ve looked at using the dash button to do this, just not sure how.

15

you would use it as a keep on button, disabling your turn off automation, and you can have your turn_on automation turn it back on.
something along these lines, with an extra automation for the dash button to turn off the second automation.

- alias: Turn on south/sw  lights when there is movement
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_frontclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_eastclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_garageclone
    to: 'on'
  condition: 
   - condition: state
     entity_id: sun.sun
     state: 'below_horizon'
   - condition: state
     entity_id: switch.front_door_switch
     state: 'off'
   - condition: state
     entity_id: switch.south_west_switch
     state: 'off'
  action:
    - service: switch.turn_on
      entity_id:
        - switch.front_door_switch
        - switch.south_west_switch
    - service: automation.turn_on
      entity_id: automation.motion_on

- alias: Turn off south/sw lights 8 seconds after last movement
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_frontclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_eastclone
      - binary_sensor.blue_iris_garageclone
    to: 'off'
    for:
      seconds: 8
  action:
    service: switch.turn_off
    entity_id:
      - switch.front_door_switch
      - switch.south_west_switch
  - service: automation.turn_on
    entity_id: automation.motion_on
16

Thanks for the help, I’ll give this a try.