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Light influences our well-being more than we often think. With Home Assistant and the extension "Adaptive Lighting" you can adjust your lighting dynamically - depending on the time of day, mood or activity. Here I show you how to install and use the HACS extension to transform your home into a smart lighting paradise.
For detailed instructions and an explanation of all configuration options, I recommend the YouTube video linked below. In this video, every single setting is explained in detail so that you receive comprehensive instructions for the exact setup. You can find any code from the video in this article so that you can use it directly without having to type it in.
What is "adaptive lighting"?
"Adaptive Lighting" is a HACS extension for Home Assistant. It allows you to automatically adjust the color temperature and brightness of your lamps to the time of day. In the morning you are woken up with cool, invigorating light, and in the evening warm light provides relaxation. This dynamic adjustment can increase your productivity and improve your sleep.
Requirements
Before you start, make sure you have prepared the following things:
- Home Assistant installed: Make sure that your Home Assistant setup is running.
- HACS (Home Assistant Community Store): HACS is required to install the Adaptive Lighting extension.
- Compatible lamps: Ideally smart lamps that can control color temperature and brightness, such as Philips Hue, LIFX or similar.
What is Home Assistant?
Home Assistant is an open source platform for home automation that aims to connect and centrally control all devices in the home. It is designed to provide a unified user interface and simple, flexible control for a variety of smart home devices from different ecosystems. Here are some points in favor of Home Assistant:
- CompatibilityHome Assistant supports thousands of devices and services from various manufacturers, including lighting, air conditioning, heating, cameras, weather sensors, voice assistants and more.
- Local controlUnlike many commercial smart home platforms that rely on cloud services, Home Assistant runs locally on your network. This means increased privacy and reliability, as your smart home devices work even without an active internet connection.
- Automation and scenesOne of the main features of Home Assistant is the ability to create complex automations and scenarios. For example, you can have lights switch on automatically when it gets dark or turn on the heating when the temperature falls below a certain level.
- Simple user interfaceHome Assistant offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to monitor and control devices. This interface is fully customizable.
- Integration with voice assistantsHome Assistant can be integrated with voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to enable voice-controlled control of your smart home devices.
- Open source and community-drivenSince Home Assistant is open source, it is supported by an active community that is constantly developing new integrations and improving existing ones.
- Data protection and securityAs a locally running platform, Home Assistant has the advantage that the data remains within its own network. This protects privacy and increases security compared to cloud-based solutions.
In summary, Home Assistant is a powerful and flexible solution for those who want to design their own smart home and control their devices centrally, regardless of the manufacturer or ecosystem.
Installation of HACS and integration of Adaptive Lighting in Home Assistant
Step 1: Installing HACS in Home Assistant
Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) is a custom add-on for Home Assistant that provides access to a variety of custom integrations and plugins developed by the community. How to install HACS:
- Check requirements: Make sure that your Home Assistant is ideally up to date.
- Download Execute script: Open a terminal for the Docker container version or the core version.
- Docker: Dial into the container with:
docker exec -it homeassistant bashor (similar) - Core: Switch to the user who is running Home Assistant
- Execute the following command for both variants:
wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -
- Docker: Dial into the container with:
- Restarting the Home Assistant: After the files have been copied, restart Home Assistant.
- Integrate HACS into Home AssistantGo to "Configuration" > "Integrations" > "Add" in the Home Assistant interface and search for HACS. Add it and enter your GitHub token if prompted.
For the supervised version, please refer to the Documentation of HACS itself to read about the installation.
Step 2: Add adaptive lighting integration via HACS
Once HACS is installed, you can simply add Adaptive Lighting:
- Open HACS: Go to HACS in the Home Assistant interface.
- Search for integrationClick on "Integrations" and use the search function to search for "Adaptive Lighting".
- Installing Adaptive LightingFind Adaptive Lighting in the list and click on "Install". This will add the integration to your Home Assistant.
- Restarting the Home Assistant: Start Home Assistant again to apply the changes.
- Adaptive Lighting ConfigureAfter restarting, you can set up and customize Adaptive Lighting via "Configuration" > "Integrations" in Home Assistant.
Conclusion
With these steps, you have successfully installed HACS in your Home Assistant and added the Adaptive Lighting integration. This powerful combination opens up a world of additional features and customizations that have been and are being developed by the Home Assistant community. More blog posts and videos on useful integrations to follow. If you don't want to miss out, subscribe to my YouTube channel!
Setting up the function
As soon as the extension is installed, you can configure it as you wish:
- Add adaptive lighting integration: In Home Assistant, go to "Settings > Devices and services" and add "Adaptive Lighting" as an integration.
- Select areas: Select the lamps or rooms that you want to control. You can create different configurations for different rooms, but also several for one room by splitting up the devices.
- Adjust parameters: The extension offers many options:
- Brightness control: Adjust the brightness dynamically to the time of day.
- Color temperature: Control the color temperature, from cool (during the day) to warm (in the evening).
- Transition: Determine how smoothly the changes take place.
- Manual override: Overwrite the settings if necessary without deactivating the entire automation.
You can configure everything via the UI. But this is what an example configuration looks like as a yaml file:
adaptive_lighting:
- name: "default"
lights: []
prefer_rgb_color: false
transition: 45
initial_transition: 1
interval: 90
min_brightness: 1
max_brightness: 100
min_color_temp: 2000
max_color_temp: 5500
sleep_brightness: 1
sleep_color_temp: 1000
sunrise_time: "08:00:00" # override the sunrise time
sunrise_offset:
sunset_time:
sunset_offset: 1800 # in seconds or '00:30:00'
take_over_control: true
detect_non_ha_changes: false
only_once: false
Functions and advantages
The "Adaptive Lighting" extension offers numerous functions that significantly enhance your smart home:
- Natural light: Your lamps adapt to natural daylight, which is more pleasant for the eyes.
- Sleep optimization: Warm light in the evening promotes melatonin production and ensures restful sleep.
- Increase in productivity: Cool, bright colors help you to work in a more focused way during the day.
- Seamless transitions: You hardly notice the adjustments because they are so gentle.
Advanced configurations
You can get even more out of it with "Adaptive Lighting":
- Scenes: Combine Adaptive Lighting with other scenes in Home Assistant to perfectly illuminate movie nights or dinner parties, for example.
- Motion sensors: Connect the lighting to motion sensors so that the adjustments are only activated when people are present.
- Time-controlled adjustments: Use automations in Home Assistant to define specific times or conditions when Adaptive Lighting is activated.
Individual and extensive configuration
The configuration of "Adaptive Lighting" offers you almost unlimited possibilities to adapt your lighting to your individual needs. From simple settings such as brightness and color temperature to complex rules and automations, you can tailor everything precisely to your everyday life. Do you want a different light color in the evening than in the morning or to control specific lamps differently in different rooms? No problem! With the numerous parameters and options, the extension can be designed so extensively and flexibly that it really does meet every conceivable requirement. This makes your smart lighting not only practical, but also a very personal highlight.
YouTube video implementation
Conclusion
With the HACS "Adaptive Lighting" extension, you can make your lighting smarter and more pleasant. Whether it's a productive start to the day or relaxed evening hours - your light adapts seamlessly to your needs. Install the extension, try out the configuration and discover how easy it is to create the perfect lighting mood in your home.
Have fun experimenting and setting up!
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