Apple Home Automation: Controlling Lights with a Single Motion Sensor

Controlling lights by entering a room and having them magically turn on is a luxury that one can quickly become accustomed to and miss sorely in other places. With just two simple automations, you can swiftly automate lights through Apple Home.

Turn on Lights

First, we want to turn on the light if it’s off. For this, we create a new automation in Controller for HomeKit using the plus sign in the upper right corner.

Events

• Events
  Motion is detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

As the trigger, we choose “Motion Sensor,” then select the corresponding motion sensor, and finally, under “Motion Detected,” choose “Yes.”

We name it “Office Light Turn On” and select a desk lamp as an icon.

Conditions

• Events
  Motion is detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

Automation has no additional conditions.

Actions

• Events
  Motion is detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

Now we just need to turn on the lamps. To do this, we tap on “THEN execute these scenes” and create a new scene via the plus sign in the top right. We name it “Turn On Lights – Office.”

As actions, we add the lamps that should be controlled via the motion sensor. You can add any characteristics that the lamps support and should be set to a specific value. This includes brightness, color tone, or color temperature. In any case, make sure to turn on and add the “Power State.”

Now you just need to save the scene and select it from the list. Then, in the overview, you can activate and save the automation.

Turn off Lights

The light is already automatically turned on. To turn it off, we need to create another automation using the plus sign in the upper right corner.

Note: Depending on the room where the light is controlled via the motion sensor, you can simply define a duration under “Turn Off” in the “Turn on Lights” automation. In this case, you can skip the second “Turn off Lights” automation. However, the light will then be turned off after the set duration, even if you are still in the room. Possible use cases include storage rooms or hallways. Possible applications would be the storeroom or the hallway.

Events

• Events
  No movement detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn off Lights

As the trigger, we again choose “Motion Sensor” with the corresponding device. In the next step, under “Motion Detected,” we tap on “No”.

We name the automation “Office Turn Lights Off” and, once again, choose a lamp as an icon.

Conditions

• Events
  No movement detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn off Lights

This automation also contains no additional conditions.

Actions

• Events
  No movement detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

If no motion is detected, the light should be turned off. To do this, we tap on “THEN execute these scenes” and create a new scene via the plus sign in the top right, naming it “Turn Off Lights – Office”.

As actions, we add the same lamps that we selected in the first automation. However, this time, we only need to add the “Power State” in the off state for each lamp.

Afterward, you can save the scene and select it from the list. Then all you have to do is activate and save the automation.

Note: The duration for which a motion sensor stays active after detecting motion can usually be set in the manufacturer’s own apps. We have found a duration of at least 30 seconds to be effective.

This way, the light automatically turns on when motion is detected and turns off equally automatically when no motion is registered.