Automations: Turn on on motion, turn of manually

Hi all,

Since yesterday my app does not show the Smart Lighting App anymore, no clue why and can’t find a solution. So I was experimenting with Automations that more or less offers the same functionality.

One thing however I am struggling with is the following:

I my bathroom I want to turn on the lights on motion, but turn it of manually. I have added a condition that this only triggers when the lights are off. The reason fir this is that if somebody spends a longer period of time in the bathroom and changes the light settings (color, brightness) I do not want that to change when the motion sensor senses motion.

This always worked perfectly with the Smart Lighting app. However, with an Automation, when I turn off the light manually, it turns on immediately because the motion sensor triggers the Automation right away.

One solution I thought of was to change the interval the motion sensor “retrigger time”, to 10 minutes. However, this does not seem to work. When I turn off the lights , they turn on instantly. Also when I do this a number of times in a row.

Another option I tried was to add a condition “light needs to be off for 1 minute”, using the “choose how long this status must be maintained before the automation runs”. This does not work.

Any idea how to solve this? Thanks!

@Helmer_Baas,
You could try creating 2 automations.

  1. If movement detected and the light is off, then turn on the light.
  2. If the light turns off and motion is detected, then turn off the light.
    They seem contradictory, but since automations only fire when the event change occurs, it could still work.

Thanks Mariano,

I wil definitely try this! Hoe would you model “if light turns off”? Only option I see if light is on or off.

I would do these 2 automations

This trigger when motion sensor detect motion when enter into room.


This trigger when You turn off light with switch and you stay into the room

@Helmer_Baas,
Since the above almost certainly works but did not works very well, you can try creating a virtual switch.
1st. automation: When motion is detected and the virtual switch is off, then turn on the room light and virtual switch

2nd. automation: When you turn off the room
light manually and it stays off 5 sec, then turn off the virtual switch
in 5 sec. It would be prepared for the next turn on with movement