Unlocking the Power of Automations in Your Smart Home

Unlocking the Power of Automations in Your Smart Home

In the previous post, we walked through the basics of setting up your first dashboard items, enabling you to manually control your smart home entities. With that knowledge, you can now take the next step by setting up a wall-mounted tablet for centralized control, or manage your smart home seamlessly from your phone using the Android or iOS companion apps—or even through your phone browser.

Now that you’re comfortable with manual control, it’s time to dive into the second essential aspect of a smart home: automations. Automations are the “rules” that make your smart home truly intelligent. Essentially, they follow a simple logic: If X happens, then Y should follow.

With automations, you can create incredibly sophisticated systems that make your home smarter and more responsive to your needs. Some examples of automations you might consider setting up:

  1. Morning Routine: Set up an automation that gradually turns on the lights, starts your coffee machine, and plays your favorite morning playlist as soon as your alarm goes off.
  2. Welcome Home: When you arrive home, your smart door lock can automatically unlocks, the lights in the entryway turn on, and if it’s too hot, then turn on the air conditioner and adjust to your preferred temperature.
  3. Security Alert: If a motion sensor detects movement and you’re away, you can have the lights flash, send an alert to your phone, play sounds of dog barking through your Alexa speaker, and trigger a security camera to start recording.

Reminder: The Difference Between Automations and Scripts

I’ve previously discussed the difference between Automations and Scripts, but let’s briefly revisit it.

  • Automations are event-driven actions. They consist of triggers, conditions, and actions. When the specified trigger occurs, the automation checks if the conditions are met and then executes the actions.
  • Scripts, on the other hand, are a sequence of actions that can be manually triggered or included as part of an automation. Scripts allow you to reuse a set of actions without having to recreate them each time. Once you’ve mastered Automations, working with scripts will become intuitive, so we won’t be discussing them in this guide.

How to Set Up an Automation in Home Assistant

Setting up an automation in Home Assistant is straightforward:

  1. Navigate to Settings -> Automations & Scenes -> Automations -> Create Automation -> Create New Automation.
  2. The automation screen is divided into three main sections:
    • When (Trigger): This is the event that starts your automation. For example, “When the front door opens.” Any trigger you specify here will activate the automation (see an overview of some useful triggers below)
    • And If (Condition): These are optional checks that must be true for the automation to proceed. For example, “If it’s a weekday.” You can create complex conditions by combining multiple conditions (For example, “If it’s a weekday *and* it’s sunny”).
    • Then Do (Action): This is the list of actions that will be executed when the automation runs. For instance, “Play music on the living room speaker.” Just like conditions, actions can be made more complex by combining multiple actions.
  3. The automation will be triggered when “trigger” happens, it will then verify that it needs to run by checking the And If , and if everything is ok, it will perform the Then Do commands.
  4. Notice that you don’t have to add a And If section, you can leave it empty if not needed.

Now, let’s walk through a simple automation setup:

  • Scenario: Turn on a light at a specific time.
  • Steps:
    • Under When, click on Add Trigger -> Time and Locations -> Time -> Type in the desired time.
    • Under Then Do, click on Add Action, choose Device, find your light or switch, and select Turn on device under Action.
    • That’s it! After creating the automation, click on Save, and give it a descriptive name for easy identification in the future. I recommend setting a time that’s several minutes ahead of you so you can wait and see the automation happening.

Top Triggers in Home Assistant

Here are some of the most commonly used triggers in Home Assistant:

  1. Sun Trigger: This trigger is based on the position of the sun. For example, you can trigger an automation at sunrise or sunset. It’s perfect for automating lights or blinds based on natural light.
  2. Time Trigger: This trigger activates at a specific time of day. You can use it to schedule daily routines like turning off the lights at midnight or starting your coffee machine at 7 AM.
  3. Time Pattern Trigger: This trigger is based on recurring intervals, such as every minute, hour, or day. It’s useful for repetitive tasks, like checking a sensor every 30 minutes.
  4. Calendar Trigger: This trigger activates based on events in a calendar. For instance, you can trigger an automation when a meeting starts on your Google Calendar, like muting notifications or adjusting lighting.
  5. State Trigger vs. Numeric State Trigger:
    • State Trigger: This trigger activates when an entity’s state changes. For example, when a door sensor changes from ‘closed’ to ‘open.’Numeric State Trigger: This trigger activates when an entity’s numeric state crosses a threshold, such as a temperature sensor reading above 30°C.
    Difference: The State Trigger is for general state changes (like on/off, open/closed), while the Numeric State Trigger is specifically for changes in numeric values (like temperature, humidity, or power consumption).

There are many more triggers available. A full list with explanations can be found in the official documentation here.

Summary

In my home, I have about 80 different automations controlling everything from lights during sunrise and sunset to irrigation, security alerts, and more. Now it’s your turn to experiment—create your own automations tailored to your home, and consider expanding your setup with additional smart devices that you can automate.

If you’ve successfully set up your first automation, congratulations! Next, I recommend diving into the world of Zigbee protocol and adding Zigbee devices to your home. This will greatly expand your smart home’s capabilities and options.

In the next installment of this series, we’ll dive into getting started with Zigbee technology, exploring how it can elevate your smart home setup. I’ll introduce you to the essential gateway device—a compact dongle that you’ll need to connect to your Raspberry Pi to enable communication with a wide range of Zigbee devices. Along with this, I’ll share my top recommendations for Zigbee devices that I’ve personally tested and found reliable, so you can confidently expand your smart home network.


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