Dim Lights When Playing Media

Like it how the lights dim up/down at the movies? Do it at home as well!

This example uses the media player, Philips Hue (transitions) and the sun component. We’ll use actions to detect media player state changes and scenes to control multiple lights, color settings and transition between scenes.

Scenes

One scene for normal light, one for when movies are on. A 2 second transition gives a nice ‘feel’ to the switch.

scene:
  - name: Livingroom normal
    entities:
        light.light1:
            state: on
            transition: 2
            brightness: 150
            xy_color: [ 0.4448, 0.4066 ]
        light.light2:
            state: on
            transition: 2
            brightness: 215
            xy_color: [ 0.4448, 0.4066 ]
  - name: Livingroom dim
    entities:
        light.light1:
            state: on
            transition: 2
            brightness: 75
            xy_color: [ 0.5926, 0.3814 ]
        light.light2:
            state: on
            transition: 2
            brightness: 145
            xy_color: [ 0.5529, 0.4107 ]

Automation

The paused/stopped state is best matched using “from: ‘playing’”. Adding in the sun condition as we only want this when it’s dark.

automation:
  - alias: "Media player paused/stopped"
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: media_player.htpc
        from: 'playing'
    condition:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: sun.sun
        state: 'below_horizon'
    action:
        service: scene.turn_on
        entity_id: scene.livingroom_normal

  - alias: "Media player playing"
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: media_player.htpc
        to: 'playing'
    condition:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: sun.sun
        state: 'below_horizon'
    action:
        service: scene.turn_on
        entity_id: scene.livingroom_dim