🎥 Movie Mode Light Control for Home Assistant

This automation suite intelligently controls your living room lighting based on the playback status of your Plex media player (e.g. Plex running on a Samsung TV). It creates a cozy, cinema-like atmosphere by dimming the lights and turning off fans when a movie starts, and restoring full brightness and normal settings when the movie is paused or stopped. Smooth brightness transitions and system log messages keep you informed about the current state.

🔧 Requirements

• A configured media_player entity for your Plex player (e.g., media_player.plex_plex_for_samsung_tv_2020).
• Smart lights and fans integrated into Home Assistant.
• Optional: Netflix app detection via a sensor like sensor.wohnzimmer_fernsehsender_name to extend functionality.

🎬 Automation: Living Room Light Control Based on Plex Movie Status

How it works:

• When a movie starts playing: - Certain bright lights and fans are turned off to minimize distractions. - Other lights are dimmed to low brightness levels (between 10% and 40%) with smooth 3-second transitions to create a relaxing theater ambiance. - A system log entry is written to document the movie start and the lighting change. - After a 10-minute delay (allowing the user to settle in), the kitchen hood (exhaust fan) switch is turned off automatically to reduce background noise.
• When the movie is paused, stopped, or idle: - All affected lights are restored to full brightness with smooth transitions. - Another system log entry confirms the lights are back to normal.

Copyalias: Living Room Light Control Based on Plex Movie Status
description: >
  Controls living room lighting based on Plex playback state.
  - When playing: dims lights, turns off fan, logs event, then after 10 minutes
    turns off kitchen hood.
  - When paused/stopped/idle: restores full brightness and logs event.
triggers:
  # Trigger when Plex player changes state to playing
  - entity_id: media_player.plex_plex_for_samsung_tv_2020
    to: playing
    trigger: state

  # Trigger when Plex player leaves playing state to paused/off/idle
  - entity_id: media_player.plex_plex_for_samsung_tv_2020
    from: playing
    to:
      - paused
      - "off"
      - idle
    trigger: state

conditions: []

actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: media_player.plex_plex_for_samsung_tv_2020
            state: playing
        sequence:
          - parallel:
              # Turn off bright ceiling and spotlight lights for cinema feel
              - target:
                  entity_id:
                    - light.a7936d80caa019ec2ce84a2c51c50a02
                    - light.1df39f453fd981ff0576529085067789
                    - light.05d30dfa72978e686a55cadeea7bcc50
                action: light.turn_off
                data: {}

              # Turn off the living room fan to minimize distractions
              - target:
                  entity_id: fan.250e37c9d2d41d709b36e1e775cf99
                action: fan.turn_off
                data: {}

              # Dim ambient lights to 25% brightness with smooth transition (3 seconds)
              - target:
                  entity_id:
                    - light.wohnzimmer_led_2
                    - light.tv_led
                    - light.stehlampe_led_2
                data:
                  brightness_pct: 25
                  transition: 3
                action: light.turn_on

              # Set a fan light to 10% brightness with smooth transition
              - target:
                  entity_id: light.han_fun_1_f1
                data:
                  brightness_pct: 10
                  transition: 3
                action: light.turn_on

              # Set bookshelf or accent light to 40% brightness with smooth transition
              - target:
                  entity_id: light.bcc7cc2e68a4318e8946e6674b617333
                data:
                  brightness_pct: 40
                  transition: 3
                action: light.turn_on

          # Log the lighting change to the Home Assistant system log for transparency
          - data:
              message: >-
                🎬 Movie started – lights dimmed, fan off, kitchen hood will turn off after 10 minutes.
              level: info
            action: system_log.write

          # Wait 10 minutes before turning off the kitchen hood to reduce noise gradually
          - delay: "00:10:00"

          # Turn off kitchen hood (exhaust fan) after delay
          - target:
              entity_id: switch.a77978ab818643c5455ae6563230f92b
            action: switch.turn_off
            data: {}

      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: |
              {{ trigger.to_state.state in ['paused', 'off', 'idle'] and
                 trigger.from_state.state == 'playing' }}
        sequence:
          - parallel:
              # Restore lights affected by movie mode to full brightness with smooth transitions
              - target:
                  entity_id:
                    - light.han_fun_1_f1
                    - light.wohnzimmer_led_2
                    - light.tv_led
                    - light.stehlampe_led_2
                data:
                  brightness_pct: 100
                  transition: 3
                action: light.turn_on

              # Turn on other lights that were turned off during movie mode
              - target:
                  entity_id:
                    - light.1df39f453fd981ff0576529085067789
                    - light.a7936d80caa019ec2ce84a2c51c50a02
                    - light.05d30dfa72978e686a55cadeea7bcc50
                    - light.bcc7cc2e68a4318e8946e6674b617333
                data: {}
                action: light.turn_on

          # Log the restoration to system log
          - data:
              message: ⏸️ Movie paused/stopped – lights set to 100%.
              level: info
            action: system_log.write

mode: restart

📌 Notes

• You can customize all entity IDs (entity_id) in the automation to match your exact smart home setup.
• The mode: restart ensures the automation restarts cleanly if triggered multiple times quickly.
• System log messages help you keep track of lighting changes without checking UI.
• Optional: If you use apps like Netflix, you can integrate additional sensors (e.g., sensor.wohnzimmer_fernsehsender_name) to trigger or condition the automation for better coverage.