Blueprints let you import ready-made automations and customize them with your own devices. No YAML writing, no trial and error. Just pick a template, plug in your entities, and you're done. Here are the best ones worth installing right now.
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Think of blueprints as automation recipes. Someone else figures out the logic. You just tell it which devices to use.
Real example: A motion-activated light blueprint. Import it once, then create separate automations for your kitchen, hallway, and garage. Each uses different sensors and lights, but the same logic: motion detected → turn on → wait → turn off when clear.
Three steps. Under a minute.
Head to the Blueprint Exchange on the HA community forum, or search GitHub. Copy the forum post URL or the raw GitHub URL of the blueprint YAML file.
In Home Assistant, go to Settings → Automations & Scenes → Blueprints. Click Import Blueprint in the top right. Paste the URL. Home Assistant downloads and validates it automatically.
Click Create Automation on your imported blueprint. Fill in the inputs (your motion sensor, your lights, your timeout duration). Save. That's it. Create as many automations from the same blueprint as you want.
💡 Pro tip: You can also install blueprints by dropping the YAML file directly into your config/blueprints/automation/ folder. Useful if you're already SSH'd into your server or prefer working with files.
Lighting is where most people start with blueprints. These handle the fiddly bits like timeouts, brightness curves, and occupancy detection.
The most popular blueprint in the entire Exchange. Turns lights on when motion is detected, waits a configurable time after motion clears, then turns them off. Inputs let you set brightness levels, only-after-dark conditions, and a "no motion" timeout.
Best for: Hallways, bathrooms, closets, garages. Anywhere you walk in and out of.
Automatically adjusts color temperature and brightness throughout the day. Warm and dim in the evening, cool and bright during the day. Follows the sun's position so your lights match natural light patterns. Works with any color-temperature capable bulb.
Best for: Living rooms, offices, bedrooms. Anywhere you spend extended time.
Maps button presses on Zigbee remotes (IKEA, Hue dimmer, Xiaomi) to specific scenes or brightness levels. Single press, double press, long press, each does something different. Way more flexible than the default button behavior.
Best for: Any room with a Zigbee remote. Especially useful with IKEA TRADFRI or Hue dimmer switches.
Goes beyond simple motion detection. Uses a combination of motion sensors, door sensors, and occupancy timers to determine if someone is actually in a room (not just passing through). Prevents the annoying "lights turn off while I'm sitting still" problem.
Best for: Offices, living rooms, any room where you sit still for extended periods.
Save energy without sacrificing comfort. These blueprints handle the logic that makes thermostats and TRVs actually smart.
When a window or door sensor opens, this blueprint turns off the heating in that room after a configurable delay (usually 2 minutes, to avoid triggering from quick peeks). Turns heating back on when the window closes. Simple, but it saves a surprising amount of energy.
Needs: Window/door contact sensor + climate entity (thermostat or TRV)
Set different temperatures for different times of day. Morning warmup, daytime setback while you're at work, evening comfort, night cooldown. More granular than most thermostat schedules because you can set per-room temperatures if you have TRVs.
Best for: Homes with TRVs where each room needs its own schedule.
Monitors bathroom humidity and turns on the extractor fan when it spikes (someone is showering). Keeps running until humidity drops back to normal. No more foggy mirrors or mold concerns. Works with any smart switch controlling a fan and a humidity sensor.
Needs: Humidity sensor + smart switch on extractor fan
Turn basic sensors into a proper security layer. These pair well with our security system guide.
Works with the Alarmo custom integration. Sends rich notifications when the alarm triggers, including which sensor was tripped, a camera snapshot (if you have Frigate), and actionable buttons to disarm from your phone. Supports multiple notification targets.
Needs: Alarmo integration + mobile app for notifications
Sends a notification if a door or window has been open for longer than a set time. Configurable per sensor, so your front door alerts after 5 minutes while a bedroom window can stay open for hours. Repeats the alert at intervals until closed.
Best for: Front doors, garage doors, refrigerators, any sensor that should not stay open.
The go-to blueprint for Frigate NVR users. Sends a notification with a snapshot and a short video clip when a specific object type is detected (person, car, animal). Filters by zone, time of day, and object type so you only get alerts that matter.
Needs: Frigate + HA mobile app. See our camera guide for setup.
Make your home respond to who's there and who isn't. These go beyond basic "someone is home" detection.
Triggers when your phone enters the home zone. Turns on porch lights, disarms the alarm, adjusts the thermostat, and plays your favorite playlist. Configurable per person, so each family member gets their own welcome routine. Includes a cooldown to prevent re-triggering.
Needs: HA Companion App (for phone-based zone tracking)
Tracks multiple people in your household. When the last person leaves, it arms the alarm, turns off all lights, sets the thermostat to away mode. When the first person comes back, it reverses everything. Works with any number of tracked people.
Best for: Households with multiple people. The "nobody home" and "someone's back" scenario.
Uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons or phone tracking via ESPresense to detect which room you're in, not just whether you're home. Controls lights, music, and climate per room based on actual occupancy. More reliable than motion sensors for room-level presence.
Needs: ESP32 boards running ESPresense (one per room) + BLE device to track
Get alerts that actually help instead of annoying you. These blueprints handle the notification logic so you don't get spammed.
Scans all your battery-powered sensors and sends a daily digest of devices below a threshold (usually 20%). Way better than finding out your motion sensor died three weeks ago. Groups all low batteries into one notification instead of spamming you separately.
Best for: Anyone with more than a few Zigbee or Z-Wave battery sensors.
Monitors power consumption of an appliance via a smart plug. Detects when it transitions from running (high wattage) to idle (low wattage) and sends a notification. No more forgetting about laundry in the washer. Configurable thresholds for different appliances.
Needs: Smart plug with energy monitoring (Shelly Plug S, Zigbee plug with power reporting)
A generic blueprint for sending notifications with action buttons on your phone. "Someone's at the door: Unlock / Ignore / View Camera." You define the trigger, the message, and the actions. Each button triggers a different automation. Reuse it for dozens of scenarios.
Best for: Any situation where you want to respond from your phone without opening the app.
Make your speakers and TVs work together with the rest of your smart home.
When your TV starts playing, dim the lights to a set level (or turn them off entirely). When playback pauses, bring the lights back up. When it stops, return to normal lighting. Works with Plex, Kodi, Chromecast, Apple TV, and most media players that report their state.
Needs: Media player integration + dimmable lights
Gradually increases speaker volume and plays a chosen playlist or radio station at a set time. Combined with a gradual light increase, it's a much nicer way to wake up than a phone alarm. Configurable fade-in duration, max volume, and media source.
Best for: Bedrooms with a smart speaker. Combine with adaptive lighting for the full sunrise effect.
The official section on the Home Assistant community forum. Hundreds of blueprints, organized by category. Moderated and community-reviewed. This is where you should look first.
Search "home-assistant-blueprints" on GitHub. Many developers host their blueprints there, sometimes with better documentation than the forum posts. You can import directly from raw GitHub URLs.
Channels like Everything Smart Home, Smart Home Junkie, and JuanMTech regularly share blueprints with video walkthroughs. Check description links.
r/homeassistant frequently has blueprint shares and requests. Good for finding niche blueprints that solve very specific problems.
Once you've built a few automations, turning them into blueprints is surprisingly straightforward.
A blueprint is just a regular automation YAML file with two additions at the top: a blueprint: section that defines the name, description, and domain, and an input: section that lists the variables users will fill in.
blueprint:
name: Motion-Activated Light
description: Turn on a light when motion is detected.
domain: automation
input:
motion_sensor:
name: Motion Sensor
selector:
entity:
domain: binary_sensor
device_class: motion
target_light:
name: Light
selector:
target:
entity:
domain: light
no_motion_wait:
name: Wait time
description: Time to leave the light on after motion clears.
default: 120
selector:
number:
min: 0
max: 3600
unit_of_measurement: seconds
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: !input motion_sensor
to: "on"
action:
- service: light.turn_on
target: !input target_light
- wait_for_trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: !input motion_sensor
to: "off"
- delay:
seconds: !input no_motion_wait
- service: light.turn_off
target: !input target_lightBlueprints are reusable automation templates. Instead of writing YAML from scratch, you import a blueprint and fill in your own entities (lights, sensors, switches). The logic is pre-built. You just tell it which devices to use. Think of them as automation recipes that someone else already figured out.
Go to Settings, then Automations and Scenes, then Blueprints. Click Import Blueprint in the top right. Paste the URL (from the community forum or GitHub). Home Assistant downloads and validates it. Then click Create Automation from that blueprint and fill in your entities.
You can edit the YAML file directly in your config/blueprints/automation/ folder. But most people just customize the inputs when creating an automation. If you need deeper changes, create the automation from the blueprint first, then detach it into a regular automation you can edit freely.
The official Blueprint Exchange on the Home Assistant community forum is the best source. GitHub is another good option. Search for "home-assistant-blueprints" and you'll find curated collections. Popular HA YouTube channels also share blueprints in their descriptions.
Blueprints can only create automations. They can't access your network, install software, or modify your system. The worst a bad blueprint can do is create an automation that doesn't work. Blueprints from the official community forum are reviewed by moderators, making them your safest bet.
A regular automation is specific to your devices. A blueprint is a template with variables. Import it once and create multiple automations from it, each with different inputs. One motion-light blueprint can power separate automations for every room in your house.
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