Blueprint

The blueprint is the automation each room runs. This page covers every input and how a room behaves.

On this page

Room
Colour
Scenes
Brightness
Idle brightness
Timing
Additional triggers
How a room behaves
Turning override protection off
Updating the blueprint

Room

Input	Default	Description
Schedule	required	The FLARE schedule the room follows.
Zone	none	The FLARE zone the room belongs to. Leave it empty to turn override protection off for the room.
Lights & Occupancy	required	The room’s lights, and the occupancy and motion sensors that turn them on and off.

Lights & Occupancy takes an area, a floor, a device, a label, or individual entities. An area includes lights and sensors added to it later.

The room’s lights are the ones an action such as light.turn_on would reach on the same target. An entity you pick directly is always included. An entity reached through an area, floor, device or label is left out if it’s hidden, and also if it’s a configuration or diagnostic entity (such as a switch’s indicator light), unless the label is on that entity itself. The room’s flare has the same lights.

Sensors are binary_sensor entities with device_class: occupancy or device_class: motion; other binary sensors in the target are ignored. A room can mix both kinds.

A room with no sensor follows the schedule but never turns its lights on or off.

If a room has two automations, for example one for a lamp and one for the ceiling light, give both the same Zone.

Colour

Input	Default	Description
Prefer RGB During	Evening, Night	Phases in which lights that support RGB are sent an RGB colour instead of a colour temperature.

Many bulbs give richer warm colours in RGB, but their cool whites can look blue, so the default leaves Morning and Day on colour temperature.

Scenes

Input	Default	Description
Morning / Day / Evening / Night Scene	none	A scene the room uses instead of the schedule during that phase.
Scene Template	none	A template returning a scene’s entity ID, or `''` for none. Overrides the per-phase scenes when it returns a scene that exists.

A scene is only used if every entity it sets is in the room; otherwise the whole room follows the schedule. When a scene is used, any light in the room that the scene doesn’t set still follows the schedule. See Scenes.

Brightness

Input	Default	Description
Lights Off During Morning / Day / Evening / Night	none	Lights to turn off during that phase.
Brightness Template	none	A template returning a mapping of entity ID to brightness. Overrides the lists above for the lights it includes.

Brightness Template values:

Value	Effect
`1`–`255`	Sets the light to this brightness, on the same scale as the phase brightnesses.
`0`	Turns the light off.
`null`	FLARE leaves the light alone, including when the room empties.

A single number instead of a mapping applies to every light in the room, and any light the template doesn’t include follows the schedule. See Templates.

Idle brightness

Input	Default	Description
Morning / Day / Evening / Night Idle Brightness	`0`	The brightness, 0–255, the room’s lights dim to when it empties during that phase. `0` turns them off.
Idle Brightness Template	none	Like Brightness Template, for when the room is empty. Overrides the settings above for the lights it includes.

For a nightlight whenever it’s dark outside, leave the four settings at 0 and set the template to:

{{ 10 if is_state('sun.sun', 'below_horizon') else {} }}

An idle brightness is the only way the room’s lights come on while it’s empty. See Templates for one lamp as the nightlight, and other variations.

Timing

Input	Default	Description
Wait time	120s	How long every sensor must be clear before the room is empty.
Motion On Transition	1s	Transition when someone comes in, or when you run the automation by hand.
Motion Off Transition	15s	Transition when the room empties.
Background Transition	5s	Transition for every other update.

Additional triggers

Input	Default	Description
Additional Triggers	none	Entities that make the room update as soon as they change.

Add any entity a template depends on, such as the TV in a Brightness Template that dims the room while it’s playing. An additional trigger only adjusts lights that are already on. To turn a room on from something else, see lighting a room from a remote.

How a room behaves

When the room updates

A room updates straight away when the phase changes, a sensor detects someone, an Additional Trigger changes, or one of its lights comes back online. Between those, it updates on its zone’s tick, which is every minute by default. A room without a Zone updates every minute, on the minute.

When lights turn on and off

Lights turn on when a sensor detects someone, and turn off once every sensor in the room has been clear for the Wait time.

While every light in Lights & Occupancy is off, the only things that turn any of them on are a sensor detecting someone, running the automation by hand, and idle brightness. Once at least one light is on, any update can turn on the others. This means a phase change doesn’t light up an empty room, and a bulb that comes back online stays off if the rest of the room is off.

If a light is still on after the room has been empty for the Wait time, the turn-off is sent again.

Running the automation by hand sets every light in the room, including ones someone else has changed.

Why didn’t my light change?

Someone else changed it. A light changed from a wall switch, an app, a voice assistant or another automation, including being turned off, is left alone until every light in the room is off. See override protection.
The room is empty and the light was off. See when lights turn on and off.
It’s already close enough. Changes smaller than 5% of the brightness or 5 mireds of colour temperature aren’t sent. You can change both limits under FLARE → Zones → Configure.
It’s unavailable. FLARE sets it once it comes back online.
A scene has it, or Brightness Template returns null for it.
It’s at its idle brightness. See idle brightness.
It isn’t one of the room’s lights. A hidden light, or a configuration or diagnostic light, isn’t included through an area, floor, device or label. Pick it directly in Lights & Occupancy to include it. See Room.

Turning override protection off

Override protection works by reading back what each light reports, and checking it against what FLARE last sent. Bulbs don’t always report what they’re actually showing. Some send an old value for a moment after they reconnect, some report a colour in a different form from the one they were sent, and some settle on a colour outside the range they say they support. When a bulb reports something FLARE didn’t send, it reads as overridden even though nobody touched it, and FLARE leaves it alone until every light in the room is off.

If a room’s lights keep getting stuck like this, you can leave Zone empty in the room’s automation. FLARE then sets the room’s lights on every update without checking what they report, which also means:

A light someone else changes, from a wall switch, an app or another automation, goes back to the curve at the next update.
A light switched off by hand comes back on at the next update while the room is occupied.
If you set the room’s flare to a brightness or colour, for example by asking a voice assistant for 100%, the room goes back to the curve at the next update. Turning the flare on and off works as usual.

A room without a zone updates every minute, on the minute, and doesn’t appear in the Zones view.

If you turn override protection off because of your bulbs, please open an issue with their make and model, so FLARE can learn to read them properly.

Updating the blueprint

The blueprint comes with FLARE, so after each FLARE update a repair appears under Settings → System → Repairs offering the new copy. Press Fix to install it; your automations keep their settings. If you’ve edited your own copy, ignore the repair, because installing replaces the file.

The test trace reports show runs of the blueprint from its tests, with each step matched to the line of the blueprint it comes from.