Create Automations in Home Assistant

Smart home and home automation are terms that seem to be used interchangeably often, though they really shouldn’t be. A smart home is the all encompassing term for the home system that is connected to the devices in the house. It can be controlled using direct control, like using your smartphone, voice, or buttons. Home automation is something a smart home is capable of carrying out without direct control. Here are some basic examples:

• Make your lights turn on or off with a timer
• Make your device turn off when you leave the house.
• Make your TV turn on when you get home for the day.

Creating automations in Home Assistant is mostly a straightforward process. There are two different ways to select an entity or device depending on how it was integrated. Both entity types are found within the automation editor.

Automate Integrated Devices

1. Navigate to the Automations Editor.
   • Configuration -> Automations

2. Click +Add Automation on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
3. The Create a new automation window will pop up.
   • This pop up can be used to make basic automations using regular English.
   • You can also use a blueprint from this page.
   • To create a new automation from scratch, tap or click Start With an Empty Automation.

4. Name and describe your automation.
5. Choose a trigger. Conditions can be added to the automation as well.

6. Change Action type to Device.
7. Pick the device and action you want from the drop down menus.
8. You can test your automation on the Automations screen.

Automate Manually Configured Devices

1. Navigate to the Automation Editor.
   • Configuration -> Automations
2. Click +Add Automation on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
3. Name and describe your automation.
4. Choose a trigger. Conditions can also be added to the automation.

5. Set Action type to Call service and pick the service you want to use.
   • Some examples include switch.turn_on / switch.turn_off / switch.toggle
6. Choose the area, device, entity, or entities you want to perform this action and save your automation.

Add Automations to Lovelace UI

1. Open Edit Dashboard, which was covered in Organize and Customize Home Assistant, by clicking the dots in the top-right of the screen.
2. Click +Add Card in the bottom corner to add a new card.
   • Automations can easily be added to Entities cards.
3. Title the card and add the automation entities.

4. After you save your changes, you will see your new Automations card.
5. Exit the editing mode when you are finished making changes.

Conclusion

Automations are easy to create in Home Assistant. If you’re having any issues, slow down and make sure you’re going step by step. The more complicated the automation, it may take some time to perfect.