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Events 1.7.0+

Events let you track when something happens in your home.
Unlike flags or modes, events maintain a history—you can check whether an event happened today, within a certain time window, or a specific number of times.

Events are ideal for tracking occurrences that you want to analyze over time, such as motion detections, door openings, or custom triggers.

How it works

When an event is triggered, a timestamped entry is added to its history.
You can then check this history using various conditions to build smarter automations.

Events are useful for:

  • Limiting actions based on how often something has happened
  • Detecting patterns like "door opened three times in 5 minutes"
  • Checking if something happened at all today
  • Building conditional logic based on recent activity

Events are not tied to any specific device. They track custom occurrences you define.

Flow cards

These flow cards let you trigger, clear, and check events directly from your flows.

Actions

FlowBits
Trigger event Doorbell Pressed
Trigger an event, adding a new timestamped entry to its history.
FlowBits
Trigger event Doorbell Pressed with value Front door
Trigger an event with a value, adding a new timestamped entry to its history. The value is available as a tag in the trigger.
FlowBits
Clear event Motion Detected
Clear all stored history for a specific event.
FlowBits
Clear all events
Clear the history of all events at once.

Conditions

FlowBits
Event Doorbell Pressed happened
Checks if the event has ever happened (has any history).
FlowBits
Event Mail Delivered happened today
Checks if the event happened at least once today.
FlowBits
Event Motion Detected happened within 10 minutes
Checks if the event happened within a specific time window.
FlowBits
Event Door Opened happened 3 times today
Checks if the event happened a specific number of times today.
FlowBits
Event Button Pressed happened 5 times within 1 minutes
Checks if the event happened a specific number of times within a time window.

Triggers

FlowBits
Event Doorbell Pressed is triggered
Triggers when an event is triggered. If the event was triggered with a value, it is available as the 'Event value' tag.
FlowBits
Event Motion Detected is cleared
Triggers when an event's history is cleared.

Examples

Limit notifications

Only send a notification if the doorbell hasn't been pressed in the last 5 minutes. This prevents spam when someone presses the bell multiple times.

Detect suspicious activity

If the front door opens more than five times within 10 minutes, send an alert. Useful for detecting unusual entry patterns.

Daily digest

Check if mail was delivered today before sending a reminder notification in the evening.

Notes

  • Events maintain a limited history of recent occurrences.
  • Clearing an event removes all its history—it will no longer pass the "happened" condition.
  • Use descriptive names to make your automations easy to understand.