How do I set up a sequence for if my camera detects a motion at night turn on the lights? All questions

I want my hue lights to turn on at night for 15 minutes if my next camera detects a motion

Asked by Anonymous on June 1, 2019, at 12:49pm (edited on June 1, 2019, at 12:51pm)

This is a great use case!  There will be a few steps to set this up, but it will work well. You're going to need to use a single sequence as well as 3 IFTTT applets.

Let's create the sequence first, with the following steps::

  1. IFTTT webhook trigger, with event name camera_motion
  2. Call IFTTT, with event name hue_lights_on
  3. Pause for 15 minutes
  4. Call IFTTT, with event name hue_lights_off
Your sequence should look something like this.  Take note of the URL with the red arrow, because you're going to need this in the next step:

Now, go ahead and create the following IFTTT applets:

  • Camera detects motion: Depending on the camera you have and how you want the trigger to work, set up so that if either new sound or motion event or new motion event, then webhook service make a web request to the URL indicated in the screenshot above.
  • Turn on the lights: If webhooks service receives a web request with event name hue_lights_on then, Philips Hue service turn on lights with your selection of lights
    • Instead of selecting a light here, you could use a Philips Hue scene instead
    • Also, if you want to turn on more than one light just repeat this applet for each light you want to turn on
  • Turn off the lights: If webhooks service receives a web request with event name hue_lights_off then, Philips Hue service turn off lights with your selection of lights
    • As above, instead of selecting a light here, you could use a Philips Hue scene instead
    • Also, if you want to turn off more than one light just repeat this applet for each light you want to turn off
The other thing you'll need to do is set your IFTTT key in your user profile.  Check out this page for instructions on how to do that.
If you get stuck along the way, just post back here and I'd be happy to help.

How do you add a condition for this to run only at night?

Between the webhook trigger and the call to IFTTT to turn on the Hue lights, add a condition. The after dark condition is just what you're after. You can find out more about it here.

Make sure you've set your timezone in your user settings and either provide your location when setting up the condition or in your user settings as well.

Thanks!! Works now.

Good to hear

Isn�t it possible with one IFTTT applet and one sequence, or I�m wrong?


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