A simple Node Red flow to turn off the ceiling light over our Christmas tree

We have installed 24 Hue GU10 spotlights in our open-plan kitchen / sitting room so we can zone (and control) our lights more precisely than the physical wiring allows.

Unfortunately the most convenient location for our Christmas tree places it directly under a spotlight, which spoils the effect of the tree lights. I created this Node Red flow in Home Assistant with the objective:

  • Whenever the Christmas tree lights are on, the overhead spotlight should be off.
  • Whenever the Christmas tree lights are off, the ceiling spotlights should function as normal.
  • Changing the state of either the ceiling or tree lights should re-apply the previous 2 rules correctly.

A screenshot of the Node Red flow described in this postA screenshot of the Node Red flow described in this post

Annoyingly, controlling the ceiling lights from a Hue wall switch means (in some cases) Home Assistant doesn’t see’ the change in time to stop the light I’m overriding with this flow fade on and then immediately off. I’ve decided to tolerate this for now as the best’ way to fix this is to migrate all the Hue devices to direct Zigbee control from Home Assistant (and remove the Hue hub). That’s a task best done without family around.

11 December 2022