adaptive-lighting/docs/advanced/manual-control.md

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# Manual Control

Adaptive Lighting is designed to work seamlessly with manual adjustments, detecting when you or another source changes light settings and pausing adaptation accordingly.

## How It Works

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Adaptive Lighting is designed to automatically detect when you or another source (e.g., automation) manually changes light settings 🕹️.
When this occurs, the affected light is marked as "manually controlled," and Adaptive Lighting will not make further adjustments until the light is turned off and back on or reset using the `adaptive_lighting.set_manual_control` service call.
This feature is available when `take_over_control` is enabled.

Additionally, enabling `detect_non_ha_changes` allows Adaptive Lighting to detect all state changes, including those made outside of Home Assistant, by comparing the light's state to its previously used settings.
The `adaptive_lighting.manual_control` event is fired when a light is marked as "manually controlled," allowing for integration with automations 🤖.

> ⚠️ **_Caution: Some lights might falsely indicate an 'on' state, which could result in lights turning on unexpectedly. Disable `detect_non_ha_changes` if you encounter such issues._**

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## Configuration Options

### take_over_control

When enabled (default: `true`), Adaptive Lighting detects `light.turn_on` service calls that specify brightness or color values. If such a call is detected for a light that's already on, that light is marked as "manually controlled".

```yaml
adaptive_lighting:
  - name: "With manual control detection"
    lights:
      - light.living_room
    take_over_control: true  # default
```

### take_over_control_mode

Controls how adaptation pauses when manual changes are detected:

| Mode | Behavior |
|------|----------|
| `pause_all` | Pause both brightness and color adaptation (default) |
| `pause_changed` | Only pause adaptation of the changed attribute |

```yaml
adaptive_lighting:
  - name: "Selective pause"
    lights:
      - light.living_room
    take_over_control: true
    take_over_control_mode: pause_changed  # Only pause changed attributes
```

### detect_non_ha_changes

When enabled, Adaptive Lighting detects state changes made outside of Home Assistant by comparing the light's current state to its previously applied settings.

> [!WARNING]
> **Use with caution.** Some lights may falsely report an "on" state, which could result in lights turning on unexpectedly. Disable this option if you encounter such issues.

```yaml
adaptive_lighting:
  - name: "Detect external changes"
    lights:
      - light.living_room
    take_over_control: true
    detect_non_ha_changes: true
```

### autoreset_control_seconds

Automatically resets the manual control flag after a specified number of seconds. Set to `0` to disable (default).

```yaml
adaptive_lighting:
  - name: "Auto-reset after 2 hours"
    lights:
      - light.living_room
    take_over_control: true
    autoreset_control_seconds: 7200  # 2 hours
```

### adapt_only_on_bare_turn_on

When enabled, Adaptive Lighting only adapts lights when `light.turn_on` is called without specifying brightness or color. This is useful when you want scenes to work without interference.

```yaml
adaptive_lighting:
  - name: "Respect scenes"
    lights:
      - light.living_room
    take_over_control: true
    adapt_only_on_bare_turn_on: true
```

### adapt_only_on_ha_turn_on

When enabled, a light that turns on from `off` is only adapted if the turn-on came from a Home Assistant `light.turn_on` call. Lights turned on by an external source — a physical wall switch or a hub/manufacturer scene (such as a Lutron keypad or Pico scene) — are marked as manually controlled and left at whatever brightness/color that source set, instead of being immediately overridden by Adaptive Lighting.

This is the option to reach for when turning a light on with its local switch (or a native Lutron/Caséta scene) makes Adaptive Lighting override your brightness a moment later, forcing you to set it twice.

Its advantage over simply disabling `detect_non_ha_changes` is that the two behaviors are decoupled: you can keep `detect_non_ha_changes: true` to catch manual dimming of lights that are *already on*, while still leaving *externally turned-on* lights untouched.

```yaml
adaptive_lighting:
  - name: "Respect physical switches and Lutron scenes"
    lights:
      - light.living_room
    take_over_control: true
    detect_non_ha_changes: true      # still catch manual changes to already-on lights
    adapt_only_on_ha_turn_on: true   # but don't override external off→on turn-ons
```

## Checking Manual Control Status

You can see which lights are marked as manually controlled by checking the switch attributes:

1. Go to **Developer Tools** → **States**
2. Find your Adaptive Lighting switch (e.g., `switch.adaptive_lighting_living_room`)
3. Look at the `manual_control` attribute - it lists all manually controlled lights

## Resetting Manual Control

### Via Service Call

```yaml
service: adaptive_lighting.set_manual_control
data:
  entity_id: switch.adaptive_lighting_living_room
  lights:
    - light.floor_lamp
  manual_control: false  # Resume adaptation
```

### By Turning Light Off and On

Simply turning a light off and then back on will reset its manual control status.

### Via Automation

See [Automation Examples](../automation-examples.md) for automation recipes that automatically reset manual control.

## Events

When a light is marked as manually controlled, Adaptive Lighting fires an event:

**Event type:** `adaptive_lighting.manual_control`

**Event data:**
```yaml
entity_id: light.living_room
switch: switch.adaptive_lighting_living_room
```

You can use this event to trigger automations:

```yaml
automation:
  - alias: "Notify on manual control"
    trigger:
      platform: event
      event_type: adaptive_lighting.manual_control
    action:
      - service: notify.mobile_app
        data:
          message: "{{ trigger.event.data.entity_id }} was manually adjusted"
```

## Best Practices

1. **Use Zigbee groups** when controlling multiple bulbs together - this ensures consistent manual control detection
2. **Set reasonable autoreset times** if you want lights to eventually resume adaptation
3. **Use `pause_changed` mode** if you only adjust brightness or color individually
4. **Disable `detect_non_ha_changes`** if you experience unexpected light turn-ons