Strobe Lights When Alarm Goes Off

Configuration
1

How would one setup a rule to strobe all the lights on and off in the house if the alarm system is triggered. My idea is if someone enters the home they arent going to know every nook and cranny of your house as well is you do and if the lights strobe, number 1 will make it harder to see if it happens at night and number 2 will also make people think something is up if lights outside the house and strobing as well.

2

What type of light?

Some have a pulse effect.

3

Mainly isy connected zwave switches and some tplink switches and lamp plugsā€¦ I have a good mix of different thingsā€¦ even 1 lifx bulb in the mix as well.

4

ā€œStrobeā€ implies a sub-second flashing rate. Owing to the latency in most lighting protocols, youā€™re unlikely to be able to get a sub-second flashing rate (unless ā€˜strobeā€™ is a native feature of the lighting technology)

More achievable is 1-second-on, 1-second-off. Thatā€™s far from a strobe effect but still quite annoying.

5

ill take what i can getā€¦ lol the question is how would you do this untill the alarm is disarmed.

6

This is rudimentary and requires refinement. Nevertheless, it demonstrate the principle of using a timer to repeatedly toggle a light.

I donā€™t know what youā€™re using to represent your alarm. In this example, itā€™s an input_boolean.

  • When on it starts a timer called timer.looper (needs to be predefined in the config file). It sets a duration of 1 second.
  • When off it stops timer.looper.
- alias: 'Looping Control'
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.alarm
  action:
    service_template: >-
      {{ 'timer.start' if trigger.to_state.state == 'on' else 'timer.finish' }}
    data_template:
      entity_id: timer.looper
      duration: "{{ 1 if trigger.to_state.state == 'on' else 0 }}"

When the timer starts, it toggles a light.

- alias: 'Looper timer started'
  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: timer.started
    event_data:
      entity_id: timer.looper
  action:
    - service: light.toggle
      entity_id: light.family

When the timer stops it check if the input_boolean is still on. If it is, it restarts the timer.

- alias: 'Looper timer finished'
  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: timer.finished
    event_data:
      entity_id: timer.looper
  condition:
    condition: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.alarm
    state: 'on'
  action:
  - service: timer.start
    entity_id: timer.looper
1 Like
7

Thanks for this. Could you possibly advise how to add a line or two that would ensure that the light.family state tracked the trigger state when the timer finishes?

Iā€™d like to use your code to solve my problem here but when my trigger is off, I need to ensure the input boolean is off too. At the moment its random depending on when the trigger is turned off.

8

If you want to ensure the toggling light is turned off when the input_boolean is off, probably the easiest way is to add another automation like this:

- alias: 'Looper timer finished 2'
  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: timer.finished
    event_data:
      entity_id: timer.looper
  condition:
    condition: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.alarm
    state: 'off'
  action:
  - service: light.turn_off
    entity_id: light.family

So now there are two automations that are executed when the timer finishes.

  • The first one checks if the input_boolean is on and restarts the timer.
  • The second one checks if the input_boolean is off and turns off the light.
9

Would you be so kind to help - Iā€™m trying this but nothing is hapening.

  • Created an input bolean called ā€œpanicā€
  • I assumed that all here are to be added to ā€œautomations.yamlā€
  • my test light is ā€œlight.closet_1ā€

My log shows that switching the input bolean manually does trigger the automation - but nothing happens with the lightā€¦ what did I do wrong?

- alias: 'Looping Control'
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.panic
  action:
    service_template: >-
      {{ 'timer.start' if trigger.to_state.state == 'on' else 'timer.finish' }}
    data_template:
      entity_id: timer.looper
      duration: "{{ 1 if trigger.to_state.state == 'on' else 0 }}"

- alias: 'Looper timer started'
  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: timer.started
    event_data:
      entity_id: timer.looper
  action:
    - service: light.toggle
      entity_id: light.closet_1
      
- alias: 'Looper timer finished'
  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: timer.finished
    event_data:
      entity_id: timer.looper
  condition:
    condition: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.panic
    state: 'on'
  action:
  - service: timer.start
    entity_id: timer.looper

- alias: 'Looper timer finished 2'
  trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: timer.finished
    event_data:
      entity_id: timer.looper
  condition:
    condition: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.panic
    state: 'off'
  action:
  - service: light.turn_off
    entity_id: light.closet_1
10

Replying to myself. Seems Home Assistant now support looping natively. I was able to build this using the automation configurator in the UI (Hassio). This works.

- id: '1602585004975'
  alias: Home Panic Lights
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.panic
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
  condition: []
  action:
  - repeat:
      until:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: input_boolean.panic
        state: 'off'
      sequence:
      - service: light.toggle
        data: {}
        entity_id: light.closet_1
      - delay: 00:00:01
  mode: single
2 Likes
11

@123

Used your how to and works great thank you for this.

One question. I have multiply dimmers and lights that work with an on/of switch.

I am wondering if it is possible when activating the loop the dimmable lights turn their brightness to 100%? And when the loop is switched off is it possible to turn all the lights back in the on / off and brightness position the where before the alarm was activated ?

thank you! gr Mark

12

My previous post in this topic is 1.5 years old. Due to Home Assistantā€™s improvements, I wouldnā€™t do it that way today (I would use repeat like lkeays did).

13

turn their brightness to 100%

Add a brightness parameter to your light.toggle service.

    - service: light.toggle
      data:
        entity_id: light.closet_1
        brightness: 255

turn all the lights back in the on / off and brightness position the where before the alarm was activated

Create a scene that includes all of the lights you want to restore in your alarm automation before your light loop (using the repeat method as @123 suggested).

    - service: scene.create
      data:
        scene_id: alarm_triggered_lights_restore
        entities:
          light.living_room_pot_lights:
            state: "{{ states('light.living_room_pot_lights') }}"
            brightness: "{{ state_attr('light.living_room_pot_lights','brightness') }}"
          light.living_room_cove_light:
            state: "{{ states('light.living_room_cove_light') }}"
            brightness: "{{ state_attr('light.living_room_cove_light','brightness') }}"
          light.kitchen_potlights:
            state: "{{ states('light.kitchen_potlights') }}"
            brightness: "{{ state_attr('light.kitchen_potlights','brightness') }}"
          light.kitchen_sink_light:
            state: "{{ states('light.kitchen_sink_light') }}"

Restore that scene when your alarm is disarmed.

- service: scene.turn_on
  entity_id: scene.alarm_triggered_lights_restore
14

thanks for your quick response. I will let you know when it is successful. thank you both very much again