When pressing doorbell lights turn on

Configuration
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1

I built the below automation. When the doorbell button is pressed it doesn’t turn on the lights, but when I manually trigger the automation the lights turn on. Therefore I’m assuming something with my trigger is wrong. Any ideas? I’m not sure the “to:” is correct, I just pulled that from other articles I read and that’s what they had.

  alias: Doorbell lights on
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.skybell_front_door_button
    to: 'on'
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: switch.turn_on
    data: {}
    entity_id: switch.led_lights
  mode: single
2

which kind of device is changing the doorbell binary state?

3

That looks correct to me, does the sensor show that it was pressed when expected?

4

On the face of it it should work - but when I set up all my momentary switch (i.e. button) automations I used the from / to trigger for some reason. See below. I don’t know why, these were done well over a year ago but maybe worth a try.

  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.button
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
5

I have seen this happen with my own stuff. Your automation is probably defaulting to Disabled. Try including initial_state: true and I bet it will work!

alias: Doorbell lights on
  description: ''
  initial_state: true
  trigger:
  ...
6

Verify doorbell state changes to ON when pressed and not another value

7

@_Mike looks like your suggestion in adding “initial_state: true” did the job, thanks!
However, there appears to be a significant delay from when the button is pressed to when the light turns on.
Any ideas on that one by chance?

8

Glad you got it to work! The delay is probably due to the polling frequency. Probably not much you can do about that.

9

Dang, there isn’t a way to change the polling interval or something? Its like a minute delay haha, pretty much makes the automation useless.

10

That depends on the integration. Some are configurable.

1 Like
11

A minute is a lot. May be you need to share your hardware and config?

12

I wonder if its because I’m going through Smarthings. There could be a delay there, but i’m not sure how to tweak that.
Skybell doorbell
Light switch: GE Zwave (not sure model as it came with the house) This is connected through my smartthings hub.

Configuration.yaml

# Skybell
skybell:
  username: !secret skybell_username
  password: !secret skybell_password
binary_sensor:
  - platform: skybell
    monitored_conditions:
      - button
      - motion

automations.yaml

  alias: Doorbell lights on
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.skybell_front_door_button
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: switch.turn_on
    data: {}
    entity_id: switch.led_lights
  initial_state: true
  mode: single

To confuse me more, I see this error now.
Log Details (WARNING)
Logger: homeassistant.components.binary_sensor
Source: helpers/entity_platform.py:603
Integration: Binary sensor (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 10:48:48 AM (3 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:49:08 AM

Updating skybell binary_sensor took longer than the scheduled update interval 0:00:05

13

I’m trying to do the same automation but binary_sensor.skybell_front_door_button always stay to “off” when I press the door bell button. What’s going on?

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