Help me understand why a sensor not show under "AND"

Hi all!

I’m still struggling to get my head around the programming of flows. The main confusion for me is why some devices sometimes doesn’t show up under the different “WHEN”, “AND” and “THEN” cards.

This time I wanted to do an automation for the general lights in the house. I have a flow where a light sensor triggers the lights. However this flow sometimes misses (I have to investigate further as to why) so I thought I’d do a backup flow that uses the sunset event also.

Where I live there are some weird light bouncing during sunset, so I wanted to use both the sun event and the light sensor in the flow so that the lights doesn’t turn on if the light level is over the sensors limit when the sun sets.

So I started my flow with “WHEN” Sun event app: “Event Sunset starts with offset +30”. Then I wanted to use “AND” “Light sensor level is under X” and “THEN” Turn on lights.

But the Light sensor doesn’t show up under the “AND” list of devices.

I know I’m missing some basic knowhow here…and I have tried to research it…but I still don’t get it. Most tutorials I have read/seen presume that the user already have some knowledge and brushes over the basics without explanation.

In my defense I do suffer from cognitive difficulties due to a rare medical condition and English is not my native language…so please be kind to me. :slightly_smiling_face:

Your light sensor might have variables available for the use with AND cards, try a Logic card to compare for the light sensor value:

In this sample Luminance for the sensor device gives you the last know value reported by the light sensor.

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Thank you OH2TH! That worked perfect! :+1:

Variables is one of the things I’ve not been able to fully understand. I do use them, and as long as everything works, it’s fine…but as soon as something don’t I’m all but lost. :roll_eyes:

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Thank you Peter. I have seen that page and watched the video…but I still haven’t gotten the hang of variables fully. It’s probably me…not the instructions. :confused:

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