Beginner: Your First Automation and Scenes in Home Assistant

Automations make things happen automatically; Scenes save and recall a set of device states. Here’s a simple, reliable first setup.

What You’ll Need

• A motion sensor that is already connected to Home Assistant. If you need help choosing one, see our guide to hardware for Home Assistant .
• A smart light (like a Philips Hue bulb) that is also connected.
• About 10 minutes.

Example 1: Motion turns on a light (UI steps)

1. Settings → Automations & Scenes → Create Automation → “Start with an empty automation”.
2. Trigger: Device → your motion sensor → “Detects motion”.
3. Condition (optional): Time → After sunset.
4. Action: Device → your light → Turn on.
5. Save and test.

YAML equivalent

automation:
  - alias: Hall light on motion at night
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.hall_motion
        to: "on"
    condition:
      - condition: sun
        after: sunset
    action:
      - service: light.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: light.hall

Example 2: Auto-off after inactivity

Add a second automation to turn the light off if there’s no motion for 5 minutes.

automation:
  - alias: Hall light off after 5 min no motion
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.hall_motion
        to: "off"
        for: "00:05:00"
    action:
      - service: light.turn_off
        target:
          entity_id: light.hall

Scenes: Save and restore device states

• Create a Scene (Settings → Automations & Scenes → Scenes → Add) with your preferred device states.
• Call the scene from an automation or a button.

Example: A “Movie” scene and a button to activate it.

scene:
  - name: Movie
    entities:
      light.living_room:
        state: "on"
        brightness_pct: 20
      light.tv_backlight:
        state: "on"
        brightness_pct: 5

script:
  movie_mode:
    alias: Movie Mode
    sequence:
      - service: scene.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: scene.movie

Next steps

• Add occupancy conditions (combine motion + contact sensors).
• Use the Sun, Weather, or Time helpers for smarter lighting.
• Expose scenes to voice assistants for quick control. For more on this, see our guide to creating schedules for voice assistants .

References