Sorry basic questions on automation

Configuration
1

I’m sorry I’m really new to Home Assistant and not a programmer. I’ve got most sensors and lights connected but having frustrations getting any automations going. I started with the Gui but couldn’t get the lights to turn on so then have been trying to use the automations.yaml directly to alter it.

2 questions (Thank you for any imput and sorry for the basic questions, i promise i’ve googled and looked at documents on home-assistant.io)

  1. Can you help me understand why this basic one that would turn a light on based off motion doesn’t fire?
  2. I can’t find much on “groups” in a perfect world I would like all the lights in my Family Room to turn on (Family Room) is what I named the Area Registry. Would that be like a group.Family_Room, or does the group have to be set up somewhere else?
 id: '1572628846432'
  alias: test lights on motion - family room
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - device_id: c6221439886a47f1827e35a4d32de900
    domain: binary_sensor
    entity_id: binary_sensor.centralite_motion_sensor_a_521f380e_1_1280
    platform: device
    type: motion
  condition:
  - after: 07:00:00
    before: '22:30:00'
    condition: time
  action:
    service: light.turn_on
    entity_id:light.sengled_e11_g13_623c1103_1:
2

Is the : supposed to be at the end of the entity ID name?

Area registry is not groups. Please read the documentation on groups I have linked. You set the groups elsewhere. The area registry isn’t what you’re looking for.

3

Thank you so much. So groups are just defined in the regular configuration.yaml? super simple, thank you, not sure why i couldn’t find that but think i was searching groups not group.

on the : at the end of my entity i kept getting an error message using configurator add-on of the following (i have tried it with and without the : and still doesn’t work.

can not read an implicit mapping pair; a colon is missed at line 16, column 47:
… light.sengled_e11_g13_623c1103_1
^

4

add a space between the colon and your entity id. Add quotes around your times in before and after

5

Ok have changed to the following but not working so far. I’ve checked the light and can turn it on and off via the “overview” page, will keep playing around but anything else you can think of?

- id: '1572628846432'
  alias: test lights on motion - family room
  description: 'motion turns on light in family room'
  trigger:
  - device_id: c6221439886a47f1827e35a4d32de900
    domain: binary_sensor
    entity_id: binary_sensor.centralite_motion_sensor_a_521f380e_1_1280
    platform: device
    type: motion
  condition:
  - after: '07:00:00'
    before: '22:30:00'
    condition: time
  action:
    service: light.turn_on
    entity_id:light.sengled_e11_g13_75911103_1 :
6

Still don’t have the space between the colon and your light. Also you didn’t remove the colon at the end of the line like @flamingm0e said

7

Whoops, thought space at the end, I see what you guys are saying. I added the space and removed the : at the end. Assuming I don’t need to restart anything after changes in automations.yaml or do it?

entity_id: light.sengled_e11_g13_75911103_1

8

still nothing working yet below is the entire contents of my automations.yaml file, should i have more in it?

- id: '1572628846432'
  alias: test lights on motion - family room
  description: 'motion turns on light in family room'
  trigger:
  - device_id: c6221439886a47f1827e35a4d32de900
    domain: binary_sensor
    entity_id: binary_sensor.centralite_motion_sensor_a_521f380e_1_1280
    platform: device
    type: motion
  condition:
  - after: '07:00:00'
    before: '22:30:00'
    condition: time
  action:
    service: light.turn_on
    entity_id: light.sengled_e11_g13_75911103_1
9

Did you reload automations?

10

Nope and that was it. Thank you and sorry for the very basic questions.