vd Brink Home Automations

Home automations: Home Assistant, ESPHome, Node-RED and more.

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Home Assistant: Aurora Borealis integration

Introduction

Home Assistant logo Since I caught my first northern light (Aurora Borealis) on camera, here in the Netherlands, I was looking for a way for an own automation which informs me when the change is available to catch it again! I already had an app for that, but I want to integrate it to my own home server and send my own alert messages. Then I can remove that app again.

After a post on a forum, I was informed about a Home Assistant integration, called: NOAA Aurora Sensor. This does exact what I want. Set a threshold which sets a sensor value on On when the change is high to see it.

My first northern light photo My first northern light photo

More info about this integration www.home-assistant.io/integrations/aurora

Home Assistant integration: NOAA Aurora Sensor

Go to integrations and search for noaa aurora

find NOAA Aurora Sensor integration

or use this link to install it:

Open your Home Assistant instance and show the add-on store.

This Aurora integration uses the NOAA Aurora Forecast service to let you know if an aurora might be visible at your home location in the next 30 minutes, based on the current solar flare activity.

This service adds two sensors, one contains a number 0-100 representing the current likelihood in percentage of visible auroras at your latitude/longitude.

Sensor Type Values Description
binary_sensor on / off on = high chance of Aurora visibility, off = low chance of visibility
sensor % value Percentage chance of visibility

two sensors added

By default, this sensor is set up to trigger when the reported likelihood for your location is > 75. You can change this value in the settings.

It updates every 5 minutes.

Now it’s possible to create a notification based on these sensors.

NOTE: On the evening of the big visibility of northern light, this integration value was for me only 9% with binary_sensor off.
I advise also adding an automation which checks the KP value which should be bigger than 8.

Node-RED alert

I use Node-RED for my automations.

This flow sends a text if the above binary_sensor is true/on.

aurora Node-RED flow alert
  • The first block is the HA condition node events: state node with (my) entity binary_sensor.aurora_52_4 which has state on
  • If that state matches, the next node is triggered and passes the text Northern light is now possible visible
  • The third node is link out node to my notification global flow.

The corresponding Node-RED flow:


[{"id":"8990d4c3d816c12c","type":"tab","label":"Flow 3","disabled":false,"info":"","env":[]},{"id":"c16ee5149b439845","type":"server-state-changed","z":"8990d4c3d816c12c","name":"","server":"969e9e50.88897","version":5,"outputs":2,"exposeAsEntityConfig":"","entityId":"binary_sensor.aurora_52_4","entityIdType":"exact","outputInitially":false,"stateType":"str","ifState":"on","ifStateType":"str","ifStateOperator":"is","outputOnlyOnStateChange":true,"for":0,"forType":"num","forUnits":"minutes","ignorePrevStateNull":true,"ignorePrevStateUnknown":true,"ignorePrevStateUnavailable":true,"ignoreCurrentStateUnknown":true,"ignoreCurrentStateUnavailable":true,"outputProperties":[{"property":"payload","propertyType":"msg","value":"","valueType":"entityState"},{"property":"data","propertyType":"msg","value":"","valueType":"eventData"},{"property":"topic","propertyType":"msg","value":"","valueType":"triggerId"}],"x":200,"y":80,"wires":[["fb513212ee004153"],[]]},{"id":"13cf622cd20da9fa","type":"comment","z":"8990d4c3d816c12c","name":"northern light (aurora borealis)","info":"","x":160,"y":40,"wires":[]},{"id":"6b807e64aa44f552","type":"link out","z":"8990d4c3d816c12c","name":"send notification","mode":"link","links":[],"x":665,"y":80,"wires":[]},{"id":"fb513212ee004153","type":"template","z":"8990d4c3d816c12c","name":"Northern light visible","field":"payload","fieldType":"msg","format":"handlebars","syntax":"mustache","template":"Northern light is now possible visible","output":"str","x":500,"y":80,"wires":[["6b807e64aa44f552"]]},{"id":"969e9e50.88897","type":"server","name":"Home Assistant","version":5,"addon":false,"rejectUnauthorizedCerts":true,"ha_boolean":"y|yes|true|on|home|open","connectionDelay":false,"cacheJson":true,"heartbeat":false,"heartbeatInterval":"30","areaSelector":"friendlyName","deviceSelector":"friendlyName","entitySelector":"friendlyName","statusSeparator":"at: ","statusYear":"hidden","statusMonth":"short","statusDay":"numeric","statusHourCycle":"h23","statusTimeFormat":"h:m","enableGlobalContextStore":true}]

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