Core is good, but definitely complex. Probably overkill for the initial use case you described, but you might want to get into it if you want to see the full power of the system.
CoRE (now WebCore) is a very powerful community – created rules engine for SmartThings. It allows you to set up stacked conditionals like “If A then B but only while C and not if D.”
Setting it up can be quite complex, but there are many community members who will be glad to help you.
For example, here is a piston that one member created to notify him if the dog had already been fed twice that day and he picked up the dog bowl for a third time. He needed this because he has a large family and people didn’t always remember whose turn it was to feed the dog.
If you just want a quick way to turn on lights based on the sensor values, try smart lighting:
https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205949776-How-to-create-lighting-automations-with-Smart-Lights
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