Turn a light on when approaching the house

Configuration
1

Hi, I’m looking for a way to turn a light on when I approach the house when it’s dark. I’ve got Tradfri lights which can be controlled by Hassio, all that part is set up and working fine.

I’d like some way of turning a light on as I approach the house, maybe by GPS or when I connect to wifi?

Has anyone set up something similar?

2

You can use the Owntracks app which works on both iOS and Android

For this to work you will also need to setup an MQTT server.

Owntracks is the more complex approach but easy to setup with MQTT and works the best for me.

If not you can do it by detecting when you connect to wifi, look for your router brand on the components page and see if its supported. You then just need to write an automation to tell HA what to do once it detects you have connected to wifi.

3

I do this using the unifi platform and a sensor on the front door.
Trigger on front door opening.
Conditions are after sunset and nobody home or has been home less than 2 minutes (since wifi can connect before we open the door.).

EDIT: Unifi is more reliable then owntracks for me

4

Thanks for the reply. I also have a Ring doorbell which can sense motion, I wonder if I could set it so when the ring detects motions it turns on a light?

5

I dont know much about the Ring system in HA but so long as HA can detect the motion then yes you could create an automation in HA to turn on a light when it detects motion from your ring.

But that would mean anyone coming up to your door will turn on your lights, do you really want that?

6

Good point. I do want the light to come on for anyone as I want it to act a bit like a security light.

Looks like Ring has a component in HA so I’ve set it up so it records motion and have used an automation so it turns the lights on - success!

The second part to this is turning the light off after 30 seconds. Is there any way to modify the automation script so it turns off again after a specified time? Below is the script I used

  - alias: Hall 4 Light on with motion
    entity_id: light.hall_4
    service: light.turn_on
  condition:
  - after: sunset
    condition: sun
  id: '1515148612637'
  trigger:
  - entity_id: binary_sensor.ring_front_door_motion
    platform: state
7

Add to the action…

- service: light.turn_on
  entity_id: light.hall_4
- delay: '00:00:30'
- service: light.turn_off
  entity_id: light.hall_4
8

Thanks, that looks like it should work. I’m struggling with the syntax though, can you tell me where I’m going wrong here?

- action:
  - alias: Hall 3 Light on with motion
    service: light.turn_on
    entity_id: light.hall_3
    delay: '00:00:20'
    service: light.turn_off
    entity_id: light.hall_3
  condition:
  - after: sunset
    condition: sun
  - condition: state
    entity_id: light.hall_3
    state: 'off'
  id: '1515148612637'
  trigger:
  - entity_id: binary_sensor.ring_front_door_motion
    platform: state
  alias: Hall 3 Light on with motion
9

I don’t think you can have alias in an action, the action does not need a ‘-’ and any list of items needs the ‘-’ as I specified above. Trouble is you are using the inbuilt automation editor and I don’t I just code mine directly in the yaml file. It also looks to me as if your action is not aligned with the condition, id and trigger, however when you get rid of the ‘-’ in front of the action it should then line up correctly.

10

@matt666 The automation editor just messes everything up with yaml. Read through this and you’ll get an idea of what the structure needs to be. If you’re really stuck, I’ll help out.

11

Thanks a million guys, the code that cracked it in the end was

- alias: Hall Light on with Motion
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.ring_front_door_motion
  condition: 
    - condition: sun
      after: sunset
    - condition: state
      entity_id: light.hall_4
      state: 'off'
  action:
    - service: light.turn_on
      entity_id: light.hall_4
    - delay: '00:00:20'
    - service: light.turn_off
      entity_id: light.hall_4
1 Like
13

I’m trying to do the same, are there a blueprint that does the trick?

we have 2 phones and have the app installed on them and i can see the state

small thing is that the home area is a tad bigger than i would like, but it can make do if i cant change that