Core Functionality

This component started out as an AppDaemon script implementation of motion activated lighting but it has since been generalised to be able to control any Home Assistant entity. I have discussed the set of original core requirements for motion lights on my blog.

The basic responsibilities of EC are as follows:

• (1) turn on control entities when sensor entities are triggered
• (2) turn off control entities when sensor entities remain off for some time
• (3) Do not interfere with manually controlled entities (tricky and not so obvious)
• (3.1) An entity that is already on should not be affected by time outs. (EC should ignore it and not start a timer,Read more on my blog...)
• (3.2) An entity that is manually controlled within the time-out period should have its timer cancelled, and therefore stay on.

In the original context of motion lighting, this means:

• (1) turn on light when motion is detected
• (2) turn off light when no motion is detected for some time
• (3) Do not interfere with manually activated lights
• (3.1) A light that is already on must not be controlled. (EC should ignore it and not start a timer)
• (3.2) A light that is dimmed (or color changed) within the time-out period should have its EC timer cancelled, and therefore stay on.

This FSM implementation is by far the most elegant solution I have found for this problem as the typical "if/else" algorythm got way out of hand and unmanagable.