Christmas Magic

[main aspen]

Hello folks! I have a working HA Setup with several devices. I also have apple home involved, but honestly, I think there's some circular logic happening... it's all a mess; that's not why I'm here.

I want to set up a series of christmas lights and such leading from my son's room to the christmas tree downstairs (He's 2.5 years old). This is his first christmas at home where he's aware of what's going on, and I want to set up some sort of motion sensors or occupancy sensors so that, when we wake him up, and lead him out of his room, something is triggered which turns on one set of lights, then when he walks out into the play room, then onto the stairs, etc..

I think i can handle programming everything (especially if I can do it with apple shortcuts/automations) but I don't know what devices I need to serve as the triggers. If motion sensors, or occupancy sensors, or.. like.. hollywood spy laser sensors?

Thanks for all the suggestions ahead of time!

[vestal gyro]

honestly probably the simplest would be a wireless button you can press to activate the next part

[faint seal]

for something like this motion sensors would likely be easiest.

[main aspen]

What would this look like? as far as setting up the different steps for the event?

[main aspen]

Do you have some you'd recommend? How would motion sensors differ from an Occupancy sensor? (thinking for my home office or shop as well)

[vestal gyro]

I would probably just have a input select helper set up with "leave room", "into play room", "onto stairs" etc - have the button trigger the input_select.next action and then have scenes set based on the input select value

[faint seal]

The main difference is mmwave occupancy sensors are really good at detecting you when you're very very very still (like it can detect you breathing)-- motion sensors aren't good for that. There is very little difference in speed these days.

For mmwave the Aqara fp2 or the msr 2/mtr 1 from Apollo Automation are good. The FP2 and MTR 2 will let you set specific zone areas for detection and can track multiple targets. All of these are wifi (which is preferred for mmwave)

For motion the Aqara P1 (zigbee).

[main aspen]

Hmmm. Seems pricey. Kinda liking the button idea… I need to learn home assistant automations though

[main aspen]

.

Oh, and as I’m looking at different products, as long as something is zigbee or Matter, I should be able to easily incorporate it into HA? I know Zigbees need a hub, but either of those are good options?

[faint seal]

Zwave zigbee WiFi are my preferred. Matter is still very young comparatively

[vestal gyro]

zwave and zigbee are great for low power networks but both require a controller/coordinator to integrate with HA
something that works over wifi is going to be the easiest/cheapest if you aren't going to integrate other devices into your HA over time