Hey everyone, I wanted to share a cool setup I came up with to automate my porch lights using my Ring doorbell and IFTTT. I’ve always struggled with motion sensor lights—they’d turn on at random times during the day, which was super annoying. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and create a more reliable system.
Here’s what I did: I installed a non-motion outdoor light on my porch and connected it to a smart switch. Initially, I set up a simple IFTTT recipe where if the Ring detected motion, it would turn on the light. Then, I used SmartThings to turn the light off after 5 minutes. But, as I suspected, this caused the light to come on no matter the time of day.
To fix this, I created a virtual switch using a momentary tile in IFTTT. Instead of directly turning on the smart switch, I had IFTTT trigger the momentary tile. Then, in the SmartThings app, I set up a lighting automation to turn on the smart switch only if the momentary tile was pressed after sunset. This way, the lights only come on in the evening when I actually need them!
I hope this helps someone else out there who’s dealing with similar issues. If anyone has a more streamlined way to achieve the same result, I’d love to hear about it! Let’s keep the brainstorming going! 