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5 Home Assistant Blueprints for Common Automations

By Charles
home-assistant automation blueprints yaml smart-home

Home Assistant blueprints let you create reusable automation templates that anyone can configure through the UI — no YAML editing required. We built five blueprints that cover the most common patterns we use daily.

What Are Blueprints?

A blueprint is an automation template with configurable inputs. Instead of duplicating YAML for every door sensor or notification, you create the blueprint once and instantiate it for each use case. The user fills in the blanks (which sensor, which notification service, how long to wait) through a form in the HA UI.

Blueprints live in blueprints/automation/ in your config directory.

1. Door Left Open Alert

The most-requested automation in any smart home: notify me when something has been open too long.

Inputs:

  • Door/gate/garage sensor entity
  • How long it must be open before alerting (default: 15 min)
  • Notification service
  • Custom title and message
  • Cooldown period to prevent spam (default: 30 min)

The cooldown is important. Without it, a door that gets opened and closed repeatedly (kids, deliveries, lawn service) triggers a flood of notifications. The cooldown checks the automation’s last_triggered attribute and skips if it fired too recently.

Use cases: Front door, garage door, side gate, medicine cabinet, safe.

2. Calendar Event Reminder

Triggers a notification before a calendar event starts. We use this for trash day and recycling day, but it works for anything on a calendar.

Inputs:

  • Calendar entity
  • Reminder offset (default: 12 hours before)
  • Time window (default: 6 PM - 10 PM)
  • Notification service and message

The time window prevents reminders from firing at 3 AM. If the event is tomorrow morning and the offset is 12 hours, the reminder fires the evening before — but only if it’s between 6 PM and 10 PM.

Use cases: Trash day, recycling, lawn service, appointment reminders.

3. Presence-Based Light Control

Turns a light on when someone arrives home (after sunset) and off when everyone leaves.

Inputs:

  • Person or group entity
  • Light entity
  • Whether to only trigger after sunset (default: yes)
  • Departure delay (default: 10 min)
  • Whether to turn off on departure

The departure delay is critical. Without it, stepping outside to check the mail triggers “away” mode. A 10-minute delay means someone has actually left, not just walked to the car.

Use cases: Porch light, entryway light, driveway light.

4. Silent Notification

Designed for household members who are sensitive to sounds. Sends notifications without any audio or vibration — the person can check at their own pace.

Inputs:

  • Trigger entity and state
  • Notification service
  • Custom title and message
  • Cooldown period
  • Optional condition entity (e.g., only notify on lawn day)

The notification data includes both iOS (push.sound.name: none) and Android (importance: low, channel: silent) silent delivery parameters. This works across both platforms.

We built this for a family member who is autistic and doesn’t do well with unexpected sounds. They get the information they need without the sensory disruption.

Use cases: Accessibility-aware notifications, non-urgent alerts, overnight monitoring.

5. Vacation Light Simulation

Randomly toggles lights to simulate occupancy when you’re on vacation. Runs from sunset to bedtime, only when the home mode is set to “Vacation.”

Inputs:

  • Home mode entity (input_select)
  • Vacation state name
  • List of lights to include
  • Toggle interval (default: 30 min)
  • Sunset offset (default: 30 min before sunset)
  • Bedtime (default: 11:30 PM)

A companion automation (not a blueprint) turns everything off at bedtime so it looks like someone went to bed. The randomness comes from Jinja’s | random filter selecting which light to toggle each interval.

Use cases: Extended trips, vacation mode, evening routine simulation.

Installing Blueprints

Drop the YAML files into config/blueprints/automation/, reload Home Assistant, then go to Settings > Automations & Scenes > Blueprints to create instances.

Each blueprint appears as a card you can configure through the UI without editing YAML. You can create multiple instances of the same blueprint — for example, one door alert for the front door and another for the garage.

The Accessibility Angle

The silent notification blueprint deserves special mention. Smart home systems default to assuming everyone wants the same notifications at the same volume. That’s not true for every household.

Building accessibility into your automations isn’t hard — it just requires thinking about who receives each notification and how. Separate notification groups, silent delivery parameters, and conditional triggers give you the flexibility to serve everyone in the household.