Stephen TierneyMar 18

Got around to using my weather station's ambient light sensor as an input to my "turn the evening lights on" automation in home assistant.

Just using the sun state doesn't really work on overcast days like today because it's dark for ages before the lights come on.

Now the lights should turn on if it's close to sunset and already dark.

Show threadStephen TierneyMar 18
Looks like this in YAML. The last condition is just to stop this unnecessarily firing after sunset.
Show threadStephen TierneyMar 19

It’s happening!

I didn’t tell my partner about the change. It got dark and I asked her if she considered it dark enough to turn on the lights. She said yes and about a minute later they turned on automatically.

Show threadMattR
@sjtrny my favourite thing when I lived in my old place was automatic blinds that opened using the calculated sun position so sunlight never touched my monitor
Mar 19 at 9:23amWeb
Show threadStephen TierneyMar 19
@mattrobertson that’s smart. I’m thinking of getting some motorised external blinds so will be stealing that idea.
Show threadMattRMar 19
@sjtrny I was using an adaptive-cover integration, this is the latest work from the same developer https://github.com/basbruss/adaptive-cover