Motion activated light only if light is already off?

[JDRoberts]

Welcome! The short answer is it’s frequently asked for and, although not in the stock app, fortunately can be accomplished with a small amount of custom code. Bravenl, for example, has written 4 or 5 variations on this for different use cases to help different people. See, for example:

Code to not turn lights off that are already on

I posted a similar question about turning off lights that were turned on manually. Basically, there needs to be a few additions to the core software so it is an option in all apps automatically: a “previous device state” variable so it understands the state of the device prior to execution of the action which can be held by the app to complete that task later, such as the timer to turn off a light the ability to turn off devices as either “all selected no matter their previous state” or “only devices that were not in a differnt state than expected when action began” (and the opposite of this one, as in “only the devices that were in a differnt previous state” (I can’t think of a scenario for the last one, but it seems that having the opposite of something is always a good option to have…

Or this:

Looking for a better motion-controlled light app

Hey everyone, I’m looking for a SmartApp that is a bit better at controlling my lights with motion detection. If I use the stock “lights follow me” app, my switches will turn on and off properly. However: If I turn ON a switch manually or with the mobile app, and the motion sensor never registers motion active, the switch will never turn off. Any ideas? I’m gonna keep digging… if I don’t find anything, I’ll try to write something myself. Thanks!

If you have any questions on either of those, or need something a little different, just ask in those topics and someone will help you.