I recently became a father for the second time! This also means it's diaper season again.

The Problem

To make changing diapers more convenient at night, we put a little changing table in our bedroom. In case shit happens, we simply have to carry our kid from their co-sleeper bed to the changing table without needing to walk downstairs.

Since we don't want to turn on the big ceiling lights in the middle of the night, we installed a small lamp right on the wall behind the changing table. We were lucky that there’s a socket right next to the table.

But the switch for toggling the light is hard to reach, since changing tables are quite long and you'd have to stretch quite a bit to actually press it.

Home Assistant to the Rescue!

Instead of simply installing a smart button, I thought of something fancier.

First, I first put a smart plug into the socket to be able to toggle the lamp and added it to Home Assistant.

Next, I put a motion sensor under the changing table. As soon as the motion sensor detects a movement, the light turns on. This happens as soon we put our baby on the table, i.e. as soon as the motion sensor detects my feet. Sometimes I even swipe my foot under the table, like for opening the trunk of a fancy new electric car.

The motion sensors detects movements only directly in front of the changing table. This is important since we don't want the light to wake us up as soon as someone turns around in the bed.

After one minute without motion, the light turns off again and we hope to get some more sleep. But most of the time, we start the whole story over 30 minutes later. 😄

I think the use of the motion sensor is quite clever. What a flexible piece of hardware.