Home Assistant Automations That Actually Make Life Easier

Save real time

How many times do you flip switches, check locks, or adjust the thermostat each day? Automations handle the repetitive stuff. Over a year, those small moments add up to hours you get back.

Cut energy waste

Lights left on in empty rooms. Heating running while nobody is home. A thermostat that drops 2 degrees when you leave can save 5 to 10% on your energy bill. Automations fix the things humans forget.

It just works

The best automations are invisible. Your partner doesn't need to learn an app. Your kids don't need to remember which switch does what. The house handles it. That's when a smart home feels smart.

Use the sun trigger set to "sunset" with an optional offset (like 30 minutes before). Action: turn on your living room lights at 80% brightness with a warm color temperature. Add a second automation to turn them off at your bedtime. This single automation makes your home feel alive the moment it gets dark.

Trigger: Sun below horizon  |  Devices: Any smart bulb or switch

Trigger on motion sensor detection. Turn on lights. Use a "wait for trigger" action that waits for the motion sensor to clear, then add a delay (2 to 5 minutes), then turn off the lights. Perfect for hallways, bathrooms, and closets where nobody remembers to flip the switch.

Trigger: Motion detected  |  Devices: Zigbee motion sensor + smart bulb

Install the Adaptive Lighting integration from HACS. It automatically adjusts your bulbs' color temperature and brightness based on the time of day. Cool, bright light in the morning. Warm, dim light in the evening. Your circadian rhythm will thank you, and you never have to touch a slider again.

Trigger: Automatic (integration)  |  Devices: Color-temp capable bulbs (Zigbee recommended)

Between midnight and 6 AM, when motion is detected in the hallway or bathroom, turn lights on at just 5% brightness with a deep warm tone (2200K). Enough to see where you're going without blinding yourself awake. During the day, the same motion sensor triggers full brightness.

Trigger: Motion + time condition  |  Devices: Motion sensor + dimmable bulb

When your media player starts playing, dim the living room lights to 10% and set them to a warm amber. When playback pauses or stops, bring them back up to 60%. Works beautifully with Plex, Jellyfin, Apple TV, or any media player that reports its state to Home Assistant.

Trigger: Media player state change  |  Devices: Media player + smart lights

Use the person entity or device trackers. When the last person leaves home, set the thermostat to 16°C (or your preferred away temperature). When the first person arrives, set it back to your comfort level. Simple, reliable, and typically saves 5 to 15% on heating costs per year.

Trigger: Zone (home/away)  |  Devices: Phone presence + smart thermostat

A door/window contact sensor triggers this one. When a window opens, wait 2 minutes (in case you're just getting fresh air briefly), then turn off the radiator valve or set the thermostat to off. When the window closes, restore the previous temperature. Sounds obvious, but most thermostats don't know your windows exist.

Trigger: Contact sensor  |  Devices: Window sensor + TRV or thermostat

30 minutes before your alarm (use the next_alarm sensor from the HA Companion app), bump the bedroom thermostat to your preferred wake-up temperature. When you actually get out of bed (detected by a bed presence sensor or when you dismiss the alarm), the rest of the house starts warming up too.

Trigger: Next alarm sensor  |  Devices: Phone + bedroom TRV

Use a temperature/humidity sensor (like the Aqara TVOC or Sonoff SNZB-02) to trigger a bathroom exhaust fan when humidity exceeds 70%, or a bedroom fan when temperature goes above 24°C. Add a timer so the fan runs for at least 15 minutes after the threshold drops. Great for preventing mold in bathrooms.

Trigger: Numeric state (humidity/temp)  |  Devices: Temp/humidity sensor + smart plug on fan

On summer days, when outdoor temperature exceeds 26°C and the sun is hitting the south-facing windows, automatically close the blinds to 20%. This can reduce indoor temperature by 2 to 4 degrees and cut your cooling costs significantly. Use the sun azimuth to know which windows are getting direct sunlight.

Trigger: Temperature + sun position  |  Devices: Outdoor temp sensor + motorized blinds

When the front door lock is unlocked, start a 5 minute timer. If nobody locks it manually in that time, lock it automatically. Send a notification saying "Front door auto-locked." Simple, but it catches the one time you forget, which is the time that matters.

Trigger: Lock state change  |  Devices: Smart lock (Z-Wave or Zigbee)

When someone presses the doorbell, capture a snapshot from your front door camera and send it as a notification to your phone. You see who's there before you even stand up. Works great with Frigate for AI-powered person detection. Add an actionable notification to unlock the door remotely if you want.

Trigger: Doorbell button press  |  Devices: Smart doorbell + camera + HA Companion app

Using the Alarmo integration, automatically arm the alarm in "away" mode when the last tracked person leaves the home zone. When the first person returns, disarm it. Add a 60 second entry delay so you have time to walk in without triggering the siren. Much better than remembering to tap a panel every time you leave.

Trigger: Zone (all away)  |  Devices: Phone tracking + Alarmo + sensors

Place a water leak sensor under your washing machine, dishwasher, water heater, or sink. When water is detected, send a critical notification (one that bypasses Do Not Disturb on your phone), flash the kitchen lights red, and optionally shut off the main water valve if you have a smart valve. A $15 sensor can prevent thousands in water damage.

Trigger: Water leak sensor  |  Devices: Aqara water leak sensor ($15)

When you enable a "Vacation" input boolean, your lights start turning on and off in random patterns that mimic your normal usage. Living room lights come on around sunset, bedroom light turns on around 10 PM, everything off by midnight. Add random variation of 15 to 30 minutes each day so it doesn't look scripted.

Trigger: Input boolean + time patterns  |  Devices: Multiple smart lights

When you arrive home (phone enters home zone) and it's after sunset, turn on the hallway light, set the living room to a cozy scene, and unlock the front door. If it's daytime, skip the lights but still unlock. Coming home to a warm, lit house feels way better than fumbling for keys in the dark.

Trigger: Person arrives home  |  Devices: Phone + lights + smart lock

When the home zone count drops to zero, turn off all lights, set heating to away mode, lock all doors, and arm the alarm. One automation replaces a mental checklist of six things. Add a 5 minute delay in case you just stepped out to grab something from the car.

Trigger: Last person leaves zone  |  Devices: Phones + all controllable devices

Standard motion sensors miss you if you're sitting still. mmWave presence sensors (like the Aqara FP2 or Everything Presence One) detect breathing and micro-movements. Put one in each room and your home knows exactly which rooms are occupied. Lights never turn off while you're reading on the couch. Heating only runs in occupied rooms. Worth every penny.

Trigger: mmWave occupancy  |  Devices: Aqara FP2 or EP1 per room

Toggle a "Guest mode" input boolean that disables your more aggressive automations. No auto-locking the front door. No turning off all lights at midnight. No alarm arming. Your guests don't know your house's quirks, and they shouldn't have to. You can trigger this manually or automatically when a guest's phone connects to your Wi-Fi.

Trigger: Input boolean or device tracker  |  Devices: Router integration or manual toggle

Create a zone around the school in Home Assistant. When your child's phone (or a Tile/AirTag tracked via HA) enters that zone on weekday mornings, send a notification: "Emma arrived at school at 8:23." Peace of mind for parents without being helicopter-y. Works the other way too: get notified when they leave.

Trigger: Zone enter + time/day condition  |  Devices: Phone or tracker + HA Companion

15 minutes before your alarm, start slowly increasing the bedroom light brightness from 0 to 40% with a warm tone. By the time your alarm goes off, the room is gently lit and waking up feels natural instead of jarring. If you have smart blinds, open them gradually at the same time. Simulates a sunrise, works year-round.

Trigger: Next alarm sensor or time  |  Devices: Dimmable bedroom light

One button (physical, NFC tag, or voice command): turn off all lights except the bedroom, lock all doors, set the thermostat to night mode (17°C), arm the alarm in "night" mode, and set your phone to Do Not Disturb. The mental checklist of "did I lock the door? is the stove off?" just disappears.

Trigger: Button, NFC, or voice  |  Devices: Zigbee button or NFC tag

When motion is first detected in the kitchen on a weekday morning, use the TTS service to announce the weather forecast, your first calendar event, and commute time to work. "Good morning. It's 7 degrees and cloudy. Your first meeting is at 9:30. Traffic to the office is 25 minutes." It's like having a personal assistant without the awkwardness.

Trigger: First morning motion  |  Devices: Motion sensor + media player or HA voice

On work days when you're still home at 9 AM, activate WFH mode: set office lighting to a focused bright white, keep the office at 21°C, and put the doorbell in "silent" mode (notification only, no chime) so delivery drivers don't interrupt your calls. At 5 PM, switch back to evening mode automatically.

Trigger: Time + presence condition  |  Devices: Office light + TRV + smart doorbell

Put a smart plug with energy monitoring on your washing machine. When power consumption drops below 5W for more than 2 minutes (the cycle is done), send a notification: "Washing machine finished. Time to move clothes to the dryer." No more musty forgotten laundry. Works for dryers and dishwashers too.

Trigger: Power below threshold  |  Devices: Energy monitoring smart plug (Shelly Plug S)

Create a template sensor that lists all devices with battery below 20%. Send a daily notification if the list is not empty: "Low battery: Kitchen motion sensor (12%), Bedroom temp sensor (8%)." Zigbee sensors can run for a year on a coin cell, but when they die, your automations silently stop working. This catches it before that happens.

Trigger: Daily time + template condition  |  Devices: Any battery-powered sensor

When any device's state changes to "unavailable" for more than 10 minutes, send a notification with the device name. This catches Wi-Fi devices that dropped off the network, Zigbee devices that lost their route, or integrations that stopped responding. Without this, you won't know something broke until the automation that depends on it fails.

Trigger: State change to unavailable  |  Devices: All networked devices

Use the built-in backup integration to create automatic daily backups. Add an automation that checks the last backup date and sends an alert if it's more than 48 hours old. Store backups on a network share or cloud (Google Drive, Nextcloud). When your SD card dies (and it will, eventually), a recent backup means 10 minutes of downtime instead of rebuilding everything from scratch.

Trigger: Daily check + date template  |  Devices: HA built-in backup service

Use the Speedtest.net integration to run tests every 4 hours. When download speed drops below 50% of your normal speed for two consecutive tests, send a notification. Also track historical data on your dashboard to spot patterns. Great for holding your ISP accountable or diagnosing network issues before they become annoying.

Trigger: Speedtest sensor below threshold  |  Devices: Speedtest.net integration

If you run a 3D printer, integrate it via OctoPrint or the Bambu Lab integration. Get notifications when a print finishes, when filament runs out, or when the nozzle temperature is abnormal. You can even point a camera at the bed and use Frigate to detect spaghetti failures. Turn off the printer automatically when the print completes and the bed cools below 30°C.

Trigger: Print status + temperature  |  Devices: 3D printer integration + smart plug