Why is my home automation routine making the lamp blink at dusk?

[William_S]

So I finally got around to trying to set up some basic automations this weekend, and honestly, I'm a bit stuck. I thought having my porch light turn on at sunset would be simple, but now my living room lamp also blinks on and off for ten minutes every day at dusk. I’m not sure where I went wrong in the routine I created.

[Luke_R]

That porch light setup should be simple, not a daily mini drama. That living room lamp blinking for ten minutes at dusk is maddening and feels like the automation got bored.

[KyleTC]

Take a look at the actual rules behind the sunset trigger in your automation. Are the porch light and the living room lamp controlled by the same routine or by two separate ones that fight each other. A tiny mis set offset or a timer can cause a looping on and off dance.

[AvaM]

Maybe you meant sunset but you actually used dusk in the trigger, did you mix them up in the automation? If the labels differ in your hub this can flip a simple on off into a longer pattern.

[Eleanor_T]

That ten minute blink could be a firmware quirk rather than a clean logic error in the automation. If the hub keeps trying to reach the lamps after a failed command you might see a short loop until it times out.

[Jeffrey.M]

Rather than chasing the blink, try reframing the goal of the automation problem as a state flow issue not a single moment. Focus on what each device should do in isolation and what the trigger actually represents within the automation.

[Emily.S]

Start by turning off other automations to isolate the issue and check the activity log in the automation hub. Build a minimal setup that only turns on the porch light at sunset and watch what happens. If the blink continues consider testing the bulbs or hub firmware and reset one device to see if the problem is rooted in hardware or the automation.