Sun elevation changed

The Sun elevation changed trigger fires when the sun’s elevation changes. Elevation is the angle between the sun and the horizon: 0° is right at the horizon, positive values are above it, and negative values are below it. Home Assistant recalculates the elevation continuously as the sun moves through the sky.

Use the threshold type to filter which changes matter. You can react to any change, or only to changes that land above an angle, below an angle, inside a range, or outside a range. This is handy for logging the sun’s path or for automations that should respond while the sun stays in a particular part of the sky.

Using this trigger from the user interface

If you prefer building automations visually, Home Assistant walks you through this trigger step by step. You pick what to watch, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To use this trigger in an automation:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. In the When section, select Add trigger.
4. From the search box, search for and select Sun elevation changed.
5. Under Threshold type, configure which changes fire the trigger:
   • Select Any change to fire on every elevation change, regardless of value.
   • Select Above or Below and enter an angle in degrees to fire only when the new elevation is above or below that angle.
   • Select In range and enter a lower and upper angle to fire only when the new elevation falls inside the range.
   • Select Outside range and enter a lower and upper angle to fire only when the new elevation is outside the range.
   • For each option except Any change, you can enter a fixed angle in degrees, or reference a sensor entity or a number helper entity that holds the angle.
6. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this trigger in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required. For how an automation is built in YAML, refer to Automations in YAML.

In YAML, put the settings that are specific to this trigger under options. Keep target, if the trigger uses one, and general settings such as id, alias, enabled, and variables at the top level, next to trigger.

When this trigger starts an automation, it passes data about what happened to the automation. You can use this trigger data in the templates of your conditions and actions. To see which data is available, refer to Trigger data in templates.

In YAML, refer to this trigger as sun.elevation_changed. A basic example looks like this:

trigger: sun.elevation_changed
options:
  threshold:
    type: any

This fires on every elevation change. To fire only while the new elevation is above an angle, use type: above with a value:

trigger: sun.elevation_changed
options:
  threshold:
    type: above
    value:
      number: 30

Options in YAML

Good to know

• This trigger does not use a target. It always watches the sun at your configured home location.
• Elevation updates often, so Any change and the threshold types fire repeatedly while the sun is moving. If you want to react only to a single crossing of an angle, use Sun elevation crossed threshold instead.
• The maximum elevation the sun reaches depends on your latitude and the time of year, so pick threshold angles that the sun actually reaches at your location.
• To work with named twilight phases rather than raw angles, use Dawn and Dusk.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Go to Settings > Automations & scenes, create a new automation, and add this trigger. Save the automation, and then make the trigger react. For example, change the state of the targeted entityAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more], turn on a light that the trigger monitors, or change its brightness. To check whether the automation ran, open its traces.

For this trigger, there is no target entity to change. To test it, wait for the sun to move, or temporarily set a threshold the sun is about to pass.

More examples

Real scenarios where this trigger fires in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup. In the visual editor, select the UI options listed in the example when they are available, or paste the YAML code.

Automation: dim the lights while the sun is high

While the sun’s elevation stays above 30°, keep the living room lights dimmed to save energy when there is plenty of daylight.

• Trigger: Sun elevation changed
  • Threshold type: Above (30°)
• Action: Turn on light (brightness 30%)
  • Target: Living room lights

alias: "Dim lights while the sun is high"
triggers:
  - trigger: sun.elevation_changed
    options:
      threshold:
        type: above
        value:
          number: 30
actions:
  - action: light.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: light.living_room
    data:
      brightness_pct: 30

Still stuck?

To find out why the trigger didn’t react, make the change that it should react to, and then open the traces of the automation. If the automation didn’t run, there’s usually no trace, but some triggers record a Did not trigger trace. For details, refer to Testing automations. For common problems and their solutions, refer to Troubleshooting automations.

If that doesn’t help, the Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the trigger you’re using and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.

Related triggers

Explore related triggers:

• Sun elevation crossed threshold: Triggers when the sun’s elevation crosses a threshold you set.

• Solar noon: Triggers when the sun reaches its highest point.

• Solar midnight: Triggers when the sun reaches its lowest point.