Introduction

This implementation of motion activated lighting implements a finite state machine to ensure that EntityController does not interfere with the rest of your home automation setup. The use cases for this component are endless because you can use any entity as inputs (there is no restriction to motion sensors and lights).

Latest stable version v3.3.3 tested on Home Assistant v0.93.1.

Donate to support development and show appreciation

Requirements

Motion lights have the following requirements (R) that I discussed in detail on my blog.

1. turn on when motion is detected
2. turn off when no motion is detected after some timeout
3. Do not interfere with manually activated lights (tricky and less than obvious)

That last one can be separated into the following two requirements:

• (3.1) A light that is already on should not be affected by time outs.
• (3.2) A light that is switched on within the time-out period should have its timer cancelled, and therefore stay on.

This component is by far the most elegant solution I have found for this problem.

Breaking Changes in v3.0.0

The component has been renamed to entity_controller and migrated to the new file/directory format. To update your configuration, hard-replace lightingsm with entity_controller in your YAML and Lovelace configuration. The directory/file format change may require you go into your custom_components folder and manually remove the lightingsm.py file and create the new directory structure.

Configuration

The app is quite configurable. In its most basic form, you can define the following.

Configuration	Description
sensor entities	Used as triggers. When these entities turn on, your control entities will be switched on
control entities	The entities you wish to switch on and off depending on sensor entity states.
state entities	Unless you wish to use scenes, you need not worry about state entities. Essentially, they allow you to define specific entities that will be used for state observation in cases where control entities do not supply a usable state. (As is the case with scene.) Optional.
override entities	The entities used to override the entire EntityController logic. Optional.

Basic Configuration

The controller needs sensors to monitor (such as motion detectors, binary switches, doors, etc) as well as an entity to control (such as a light).

entity_controller:
  motion_light:
    sensor: binary_sensor.living_room_motion  # required, [sensors]
    entity: light.table_lamp                  # required, [entity,entities]
    delay: 300                                # optional, overwrites default delay of 180s

Note: The top-level domain key entity_controller will be omitted in the following examples.

Using Time Constraints

You may wish to constrain at what time of day your motion lights are activated. You can use the start_time and end_time parameters for this.

motion_light:
  sensor: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
  entity: light.table_lamp
  start_time: '00:00:00'                # required
  end_time: '00:30:00'                  # required

Time values relative to sunset/sunrise are supported and use the following syntax:

motion_light_sun:
  sensor: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
  entity: light.table_lamp
  start_time: sunset - 00:30:00                # required
  end_time: sunrise + 00:30:00                 # required

Home Assistant State Entities

Since v1.1.0, the app creates and updates entities representing the EntityController itself. Beyond basic state (e.g. active, idle, disabled, etc.), this provides additional state attributes as shown below.

These can be referenced in various sensor and automation configurations.

Overrides

You can define entities who block the motion light from turning on if those entities are in any defined on state. This allows you to enable/disable your app based on environmental conditions such as "when I am watching TV" or "when the train is late" (seriously...).

override_example:
  sensor: 
    - binary_sensor.lounge_motion
    - binary_sensor.lounge_motion_2
  entities:
    - light.tv_led
    - light.lounge_lamp
  delay: 5
  overrides:
    - media_player.tv
    - input_boolean.bedroom_motion_trigger

Note: input_booleans can be controlled in automations via the input_boolean.turn_on, input_boolean.turn_off and input_boolean.toggle services. This allows you to enable/disable your app based on automations! Services will be implemented in the future such as entity_controller/enable for a specific entity_id.

Specifying Custom Service Call Parameters

Any custom service defined in the app configuration will be passed to the turn_on and turn_off calls of the control entities. Simply add a service_data or service_data_off field to the root or night_mode fields to pass custom service parameters along. An example is shown in Night Mode documentation.

Note that all control entities must support the defined service data parameters. Some entities may reject unknown parameters and throw an error! In that case you may add those entities as activation/deactivation triggers instead.

Night Mode

Night mode allows you to use slightly different parameters at night. The use case for this is that you may want to use a shorter delay interval or a dimmed brightness level at night (see Specifying Custom Service Call Parameters under Advanced Configuration for details).

motion_light:
  sensor: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
  entity: light.tv_led
  delay: 300
  service_data:
    brightness: 80
  night_mode:
    delay: 60
    service_data:
      brightness: 20
    start_time: '22:00:00'                  # required
    end_time: '07:00:00'                    # required

Support for different sensor types

There are two types of motion sensors:

1. Sends a signal when motion happens (instantaneous event)
2. Sends a signal when motion happens, stays on for the duration of motion and sends an off signal when motion supposedly ceases. (duration)

By default, the app assumes you have a Type 1 motion sensor (event based), these are more useful in home automation because they supply raw, unfiltered and unprocessed data. No assumptions are made about how the motion event data will be used.

In the future, there will be support for listening to HA events as well, which means the need to create 'dummy' binary_sensors for motion sensors is removed.

If your sensor emits both on and off signals, then add sensor_type: duration to your configuration. This can be useful for motion sensors, door sensors and locks (not an exhaustive list). By default, the controller treats sensors as event sensors.

Control entities are turned off when the following events occur (whichever happens last)

• the timer expires and sensor is off
• the sensor state changes to off and timer already expired

If you want the timer to be restarted one last time when the sensor returns to off, then add sensor_resets_timer: True to your entity configuration.

Notation: [ ] indicate internal, ( ) indicates external, ... indicates passage of time, -> Indicates related action

Normal sensor Idle -> Active Timer -> [timer started] ... [timer expires] -> Idle

Duration Sensor Idle -> Active Timer - [timer started] ... [Timer expires] ... (sensor goes to off) -> Idle

With sensor_resets_timer Idle -> Active Timer -> [timer started] ... [original timer expires] ... (sensor goes to off) ... [timer restarted] .. [timer expires] -> Idle

Advanced Configuration

Exponential Backoff

Enabling the backoff option will cause delay timeouts to increase exponentially by a factor of backoff_factor up until a maximum timeout value of backoff_max is reached. The graph below shows the relationship between number of sensor triggers and timeout values for the shown parameters.

delay = 60
backoff_factor = 1.1

Calling custom scripts

You may want to use the activation and deactivation of the Entity Controller as a trigger for some other entity (most like a script). For the turn_on. You can define trigger_on_activate and trigger_on_deactivate. The controller will call the turn_on service on both and observe the state using entity. These trigger entities:

• do not receive custom service data (as they may not require it)
• have only the turn_on service is called on (as they may not support anything else)
• will not have ther state observed (as it may be meaningless, like for Script entities.)

These are the primary reasons why you might need the trigger entities in your configuration.

motion_light:
  sensor: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
  entity: light.led                         # required
  trigger_on_activate: script.fade_in_led             # required
  trigger_on_deactivate: script.fade_out_led           # required if `turn_off` does not work for the entity you want to control, e.g. scripts

Block Mode Time Restriction

When block_timeout is defined, the controller will start a timer when the sensor is triggered and exit blocked state once the timeout is reached, thereby restricting the time that a controller can stay blocked mode. This is useful when you want the controller to turn off a light that was turned on manually.

The state sequence is as follows:

Without block_timeout: Idle ... (sensor ON) -> Blocked ... (control entity OFF) -> Idle

With block_timeout: Idle ... (sensor ON) -> Blocked ... (sensor ON) -> [Timer started] ... [Timer expires] -> Idle

Example configuration:

blocked_mode_demo:
  sensor: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
  entity: light.lounge_lamp
  block_timeout: 160                        # in seconds (like all other time measurements)

Note 1: A controller enters the blocked state when a control entity is on while a sensor entity is triggered. This means the timer is not started at the moment the light is switched on. Instead, it is started when the sensor is activated. Therefore, if the light is turned off before the controller ever entered blocked mode, then the controller remains in idle state.

Note 2: The entity controller component is designed to avoid any interference with external automations that might affect control entities. Using the block_timeout directly violates this principle. If you see unintended interference, reconsider your configuration and remove the block_timeout functionality if necessary.

The easiest way to make sense of it is to set up a configuration and explore the different scenarios through every day use. Then re-read the explanation in this document and it will (hopefully) make sense.

State Entities

It is possible to separate control entities and state entities. Control entities are the entities that are being turned on and off by EntityController. State entities, on the other hand, are used to observe state. In a basic configuration, your control entities are the same as your state entities (handled internally).

The notion of separate state entities allows you to keep the entity that is being controlled separate from the one that is being observed.

Since the release of v1.0.0 and the introduction of override entities, the real use case for state_entities is difficult to define.

Example 1 One example is my porch light shown below:

  mtn_porch:
    sensors: 
      - sensor.cam_front_motion_detected
    entities:
      - light.porch_light
      - script.buzz_doorbell

The control entities contains a mix of entities from different domains. The state of the script entitity is non-sensical and causes issues. The controller enters active state, turns on control entities and then immediately leaves active state (going back to idle). This is because the state of the script is interpreted after turn on.

In this case, you need to tell the controller exactly which entitty to observe for state.

  mtn_porch:
    sensors: 
      - binary_sensor.front_motion_detected
    entities:
      - light.porch_light
      - script.buzz_doorbell
    state_entities:
      - light.porch_light

Example 2 The configuration below will trigger based on the supplied sensors, the entities defined in entities will turn on if and only if all state_entities states are false. The control entity is a scene which does not provide useful state information as it is in scening state at all times.

In general, you can use the config key entities and state_entities to specify these. For example,

mtn_lounge:
  sensors:
    - binary_sensor.cooking
  entities:
    - scene.cooking
  state_entities:
    - light.kitchen_led_strip
  delay: 300

Note: Using state entities can have unexpected consequences. For example, if you state entities do not overlap with control entities then your control entities will never turn off. This is the culprit of advanced configurations, use at your own risk. If you have problems, make your state entities the same as your control entities, and stick to state entities with a clear state (such as lights, media players etc.)

Customising State Strings

The following code extract shows the default state strings that were made to represent the on and off states. These defaults can be overwritten for all entity types using the configuration keys state_strings_on and state_strings_off. For more granular control, use the entity specific configuration keys shown in the code extract below.

DEFAULT_ON = ["on", "playing", "home"]
DEFAULT_OFF = ["off", "idle", "paused", "away"]
self.CONTROL_ON_STATE = config.get("control_states_on", DEFAULT_ON)
self.CONTROL_OFF_STATE = config.get("control_states_off", DEFAULT_OFF)
self.SENSOR_ON_STATE = config.get("sensor_states_on", DEFAULT_ON)
self.SENSOR_OFF_STATE = config.get("sensor_states_off", DEFAULT_OFF)
self.OVERRIDE_ON_STATE = config.get("override_states_on", DEFAULT_ON)
self.OVERRIDE_OFF_STATE = config.get("override_states_off", DEFAULT_OFF)
self.STATE_ON_STATE = config.get("state_states_on", DEFAULT_ON)
self.STATE_OFF_STATE = config.get("state_states_off", DEFAULT_OFF)

Drawing State Machine Diagrams (not supported yet in v2)

You can generate state machine diagrams that update based on the state of the motion light. These produce a file in the file system that can be targeted by file based cameras.

diagram_test:
  sensors: 
    - binary_sensor.motion_detected
  entities:
    - light.tv_led
  draw: True                                # required, default is False
  image_path: '/conf/temp'                  # optional, default shown
  image_prefix: '/fsm_diagram_'             # optional, default shown

State Meaning

State	Description
idle	Entity observing states, nothing else.
active	Momentary, intermediate state to active_timer. You won't see this state much as all.
active_timer	Control entities have been switched on and timer is running
overridden	Entity is overridden by an override_entity
blocked	Entities in this state wanted to turn on (a sensor entity triggered) but were blocked because one or more control_entites/state_entities are already in an on state. Entity will return to idle state once all control_entites (or state_entities, if configured) return to off state
constrained	Current time is outside of start_time and end_time. Entity is inactive until start_time

Note that, unless you specifically define state_entities in your configuration, that control_entities == state_entities.

Debugging

Enabling Debug Logging

Check the logger component. Adding the following should print debug logs for entity_controller.

logger:
  default: info
  logs:
    custom_components.entity_controller: debug

Time constraint helpers

You can use soon and soon-after to make the time equal the current time plus 5 and 10 seconds respectively. THis is for testing.

soon_test_case:
  sensors:
    - input_boolean.sense_motion2
  entity: light.bed_light
  start_time: soon
  end_time: soon-after

About EntityController

EntityController is a complete rewrite of the original application (version 0), using the Python transitions library to implement a Finite State Machine. This cleans up code logic considerably due to the nature of this application architecture.

Automatic updates

Use the custom_updater component to track updates.

custom_updater:
  track:
    - components
  component_urls:
    - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/danobot/entity-controller/master/tracker.json

Contributions

All contributions are welcome, including raising issues.