Automating Bedroom Lights

Whatā€™s a good way to automate lights in a bedroom?

I mean, I donā€™t want motion activating lights when motion is detected once one of us have gone to bed.

That drastically depends on what sensors you have in the bedroom and your nightly routine. For example, my wife and I both shower right before bed and she's in the habit of carrying her phone into the bathroom. She's always the last one done. I have Kasa plugs with energy monitoring on both our bedside chargers. Once both phones are on the chargers and the motion sensors in the bathroom show inactive, then we're in bed and everything goes. Since her phone doesn't go on the charger until we're both in bed, it works perfectly for us.

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Get a good multi button remote to keep next to bed. Assign various helpful things you'd rather not leave the bed (or have to utter out loud) to accomplish...
Button 1 Tap = Turn on Nightlight mode
Button 1 Hold = Turn on Reading mode
Button 3 Tap = Turn off Nightlight mode
Button 3 Hold = Turn off ALL lights
Button 2 Tap = Raise thermostat 1 degree
Button 2 Hold = Switch A/C to Heat mode
Button 4 Tap = Lower thermostat 1 degree
Button 4 Hold = Switch A/C to Cool mode
... and so on...

Have a "good night" rule (probably triggered by a virtual switch, optionally tied to voice activation) that as well as turning all lights off changes the mode to Night.

Then add a restriction/condition to the lighting rule the motion sensor triggers so it doesn't operate when the mode's Night.

Change the mode back to Home at a preset time in the morning, and/or when some other suitable trigger occurs.

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This is one of the most challenging automation and it greatly depends on your habits. Mode restriction is probably the best solution. In my home, some of the bedroom lights come on depending on what mode the house is in. For example I have a motion sensor just under the bed, that only turns on a light strip around the bed when the house is in Night mode.

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I prefer to keep bedroom light automations basic. If something breaks or starts behaving weirdly and the lights turn on in the middle of the night, WAF goes to zero and my home automation journey ends. My automations are quite reliable, but every once and a while something a little funny happens--That's not the kind of funny business I like in the bedroom.

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We have a Sleep Number bed with presence sensors. These can be integrated with HE using a community-supported driver. I don't use them to control lights in the bedroom but I do use them for other automation, like disabling motion lighting in other parts of the house so the cats don't light up each room they visit.

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Agreed. That's why I leave my bedroom automation to only turning things off...nothing on. I have a light strip mounted on my headboard pointed at the wall to give some ambient light that just stays on 24/7. I set it to red at 10 PM so it doesn't bother night vision/impact circadian rhythm.

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This! ^^^ Sometimes less is more.

Automate w/care when it comes to messing w/lighting that could accidentallly come on, or not come on due to a hub/mesh issue, when going to sleep or in the middle of the night.

My wife and I don't really have consistent bedtime behavior, sometimes I go to bed first and she's up, sometimes vice-versa, sometimes we want lights on even if we're in bed and phones are charging, etc., etc. My wife is also very unforgiving of automations that don't work as desred at any given moment no matter what she's doing "different from normal."

So our bedroom lighting "automation" is very simple - buttons (Picos). We each have a Pico mounted on the side of our bedside tables, and can both control our own and the other's bedside lights, and turn room lights on/off as well. That way if one of us drifts off w/our light on, the other can turn it off.

My only true bedroom lighting automation is a light strip in the area of our closets and bath, farthest from our bed, that provides very low-lighting based on movement on the way to that area and in the bathroom. So if we get up to go to the bathroom we'll get some dim lighting to help us navigate that stays on until motion has stopped in those areas for a minute. The lighting is far enough away and low enough that it won't wake up whichever of us is sleeping while out nighttime excursions are going on, or if one of our dogs is up nosing around for some reason.

Works perfectly for us.

This is also good advice!

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Once the bathroom lights started coming on by themselves in the middle of the night from cats I put on a mode restriction to disable the motion activation at night. The room lights themselves are fully manual :scream:.

I do have the controls fancied up though, so if the light switch is hit in the evening or night the ceiling fan comes on automatically, and when we hit it off in the morning it turns the fan back off. Also have different brightness defaults based on mode, this is all with the RL app.

I also have a magnetic 4 button remote and have it mounted to the head board with a washer (painted to match). Can use that remote to adjust the lights and the fan right from bed. Works great for us once the wife figured out all the buttons. For the first few days she just mashed all the buttons until it did what she wanted, :laughing:.

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Lots of good suggestions. I will add that I use modes on the master bathroom controls. My exhaust fan also has a night light built-in and I found an orange bulb for it (couldn't find a red bulb). The lighting rule has a mode so if it is likely after our bedtime it turns on the night light when we walk into the master bath. I also have used that same mode as a restriction to prevent the exhaust fan from coming on during that mode.

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I was reminded of this older thread which may be of interest:

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