The Night Light Pattern: Zone-Triggered Lighting That Actually Works

You've got a security panel with motion sensors in every room. You've got smart lights. Why not make them work together?

Walk into the kitchen at 2 AM and the lights come on at 30% — bright enough to see, dim enough not to blind you. Walk out, and they turn off after 2 minutes. No voice command. No app. No thinking.

Here's the automation pattern that makes this work, and the three mistakes that will break it.

The Pattern

automation:
  - alias: "Night Light — Kitchen Motion"
    mode: restart
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.elk_kitchen_pir
        to: "on"
    condition:
      - condition: sun
        after: sunset
      - condition: state
        entity_id: light.kitchen_cans
        state: "off"
    action:
      - service: light.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: light.kitchen_cans
        data:
          brightness_pct: 30
      - delay: "00:02:00"
      - service: light.turn_off
        target:
          entity_id: light.kitchen_cans

Simple. But every line matters.

Why `mode: restart`

If you walk through the kitchen, the light comes on and the 2-minute timer starts. If you walk through again 90 seconds later, mode: restart cancels the running timer and starts a fresh 2-minute countdown. Without restart mode, the second trigger gets dropped and the light turns off 30 seconds later (from the first timer).

For night lights, restart is always the right mode. For zone monitoring (multiple sensors firing simultaneously), use parallel. For alarm response (only one instance), use single.

Why Check If the Light Is Off

The condition state: "off" on the light prevents this automation from overriding manual lighting. If you've turned the kitchen lights to 100% for cooking, you don't want a motion sensor dimming them to 30%.

Mistake #1: Forgetting the Sun Condition

Without condition: sun, after: sunset, this fires during the day too. Motion sensor triggers at noon → lights turn on to 30% → looks broken. Always gate night lights on sun position.

Mistake #2: Movie Mode

In my living room, the motion sensor is 8 feet from the TV. Without a movie mode check, the lights flash on at 30% every time someone shifts on the couch during a movie.

Add this condition for rooms with media players:

    - condition: not
        conditions:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: media_player.living_room_tv
            state: playing

Mistake #3: Using `entity_id: all`

Never use entity_id: all for any lighting automation. I learned this the hard way — my alarm flash automation targeted "all" lights and turned on the pool pump relay, the gas fireplace ignitor relay, and a receptacle controlling a space heater. At 2 AM.

Always list specific entities.

Combining PIR + Camera AI

Wired PIR sensors are instant but only work at night (infrared can't distinguish body heat from sun-heated surroundings during the day). Camera AI person detection has a 1-2 second delay but works 24/7.

Use both as triggers:

    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.elk_driveway_pir
        to: "on"
      - platform: state
        entity_id: input_boolean.cam_front_driveway_person
        to: "on"

Either source fires the lights. The PIR fires first at night; the camera covers daytime. Total coverage.

Tool of the Week: HA Package Architecture

Instead of one massive automations.yaml, split your automations into packages — one per domain:

# configuration.yaml
homeassistant:
  packages: !include_dir_named packages

Then create /config/packages/night_lights.yaml, garage.yaml, security_modes.yaml, etc. Each file is self-contained with its own automations, input_booleans, timers, and scripts.

Benefits: easier to debug, easier to share, easier to disable an entire domain by renaming the file.

Tuesday: The M1XEP TCP drop — why your ELK panel disconnects from HA during an actual alarm, and the workaround that saved my system.

— The Automated Home

The Night Light Pattern: Zone-Triggered Lighting That Actually Works