Ambience

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Ambience

Optional layers that make the plan feel alive: day and night, the real weather, traces of what just changed, energy flows and people. Discreet by default, drawn under the badges, never in the editor (except as a live preview while the Ambience and animations panel is open). Everything comes from Home Assistant: no external service.

• Turning it on · Intensity and north
• Day and night · Weather · Traces · Energy flows · People
• Animations · Animation level

Turning it on

ambience:
  intensity: subtle         # subtle (default) | normal | strong | a number 0–1
  north: 45                 # where north points, degrees clockwise from the top of the plan
  day_night: true           # on by default
  weather: weather.home     # off unless set
  traces: 10                # on by default (minutes)
  energy: true              # off unless set
  people: true              # off unless set

As soon as ambience exists (even ambience: {}), day and night and traces are on; set them to false to turn them off. Weather, energy flows and people are off until you set them.

Editor: Ambience and animations › Plan ambience, then Intensity, Plan north (°), Day and night, Weather, Traces, Energy flow, People.

Intensity and north

• intensity: subtle = 0.45, normal = 0.7, strong = 1, or any number from 0 to 1. On a dark theme, a subtle night tint is boosted so that it stays visible.
• north: the direction of true north on your drawing, in degrees clockwise from the top (0 = up, 90 = right, 45 = top right). It turns the sun, the wind and the direction of people away.

Day and night

ambience:
  day_night: {sun: sun.sun, intensity: 1.2, marker: false}

Key	Default	Meaning
sun	sun.sun	Sun entity (elevation, azimuth, next_setting)
intensity	1	Factor on ambience.intensity (0–2)
marker	true	Sun icon on the edge of the plan, on the sun's side, with elevation, azimuth and sunset time in its tooltip

• Night: a blue tint starts when the sun is 2° above the horizon and is full at −12°; it is stronger on outdoor rooms.
• Sunlight: while the sun is up, outdoor rooms get a light gradient coming from the sun's side (azimuth + north), warm orange when the sun is low, pale yellow higher up.
• Refreshed every 30 seconds, with slow transitions.

Weather

The Home Assistant weather painted on outdoor rooms (outside: true). The editor warns when the plan has none.

ambience:
  weather: weather.home
  # or
  weather: {entity: weather.home, intensity: 0.8, direction: wind}

Condition	Drawing
sunny, clear-night, partlycloudy, cloudy, exceptional	Cloud shadows only, more or fewer
rainy · pouring	Rain streaks · longer, faster and denser
lightning-rainy · lightning	Rain and flashes · flashes
snowy · snowy-rainy	Snowflakes · rain and snow
hail	Fast hailstones
fog	A grey veil that breathes
windy, windy-variant	Long wind streaks

• Clouds: their number follows cloud_coverage when the entity has it, else the condition; they drift faster with the wind and fade at night.
• Direction: direction in degrees (default 135: from top left to bottom right), or wind to follow the real wind (wind_bearing + north, above 3 km/h; wind_speed in km/h, m/s, mph or kn).
• intensity: factor 0–2 on ambience.intensity.

Rain	Snow	Storm	Fog

Traces

What just changed keeps a fading outline: an opening that was opened, a light switched off, a device that started.

ambience:
  traces: 15                     # minutes; false or 0 = off
  # traces: {duration: 15, color: "#1a73e8"}

• Openings, badges and connected furniture leave traces; sensor, weather, sun and zone entities do not, nor changes to unavailable / unknown.
• A Home Assistant restart (many entities changing at once) leaves no traces.
• duration: up to 240 minutes (the editor slider goes to 60); color: default the theme accent.

Energy flows

Beads travelling from the electrical panel to every device drawing power, faster and more numerous as the power grows.

ambience:
  energy: {}                     # defaults
  # energy: {source: electrical_panel, threshold: 20, color: "#fbc02d", badges: false}

Key	Default	Meaning
source	electrical_panel	The furniture the flows start from: a furniture type (ev_charger…) or its index in furniture
threshold	5	Minimum power (W) to draw a flow
color	the target's colour, else its type colour, else yellow	Flow colour
badges	true	false: flows to connected furniture only, not to badges

Targets are the furniture and badges whose value, active or entity is in W, kW or MW. One to four beads, from about nine seconds per lap at 5 W to under three seconds at 1 kW. With reduced animations only the path is drawn.

People

ambience:
  people:
    home: Living room           # where people at home gather: a room name or [x, y]
    entities: [person.sam, person.camille]   # default: every person.*
    away: direction             # direction (default) | zone | hidden
    at_home: grouped            # grouped (default) | hidden
    avatar: picture             # picture (default) | initials
    persons:                    # per person, the same three keys
      person.camille: {away: hidden}

• At home (state home): avatars side by side at home (default: the centre of the indoor rooms). In the editor, with the Ambience panel open, drag the avatars to set home as [x, y].
• Away, direction: on the edge of the plan, in the person's real direction from the Home Assistant home location (latitude / longitude + north), with the distance ("8.1 km") or the zone name.
• Away, zone: a row of chips along the bottom, with the zone name ("Away" outside any zone).
• Avatar: the person's Home Assistant picture, else initials.
• people: true = every person with the defaults; people: [person.x, …] = these people.
• A tap on a person opens the more-info. ⚙ Settings › People on the plan sets the shared keys.

Animations

One animation per event for the whole plan; any opening, badge or connected furniture can override it with its own animation (shutter_animation for a shutter).

animations:
  opening: {type: pulse, duration: 1.6}        # door / window open (default)
  shutter: {type: scroll, duration: 0.8}       # shutter moving (default)
  alert: {type: pulse, duration: 1.2}          # badge with alert: true, while active (default)
  light: {type: halo, color: "#ffd54f"}        # light on (default: none)
  badge: wave                                  # other active badge (default: none)
  furniture: {type: breathe, duration: 3}      # active connected furniture (default: none)
badges:
  - {entity: binary_sensor.entrance_motion, pos: [100, 100], animation: {type: wave, color: "#e91e63"}}

Type	Look
none	Colour only
pulse	Fades in and out
breathe	A gentle, slower fade
blink	On / off
halo	A glow around the element
wave	An expanding ring (shape: outline on furniture: along its outline)
scroll	Moving dashes (openings and shutters; a pulse elsewhere)

Settings: color, duration (seconds per cycle, 0.2–20), intensity (0.2–2). Animations pause while the card is off screen. Replay and showcase shows every type side by side.

Animation level

animation_level: reduced   # full (default) | reduced | none

• full: everything, but the system "reduce motion" setting is always respected.
• reduced: nothing loops (pulses, waves, weather, flows, alert pulse); state changes stay visible with short transitions.
• none: no animation and no transition at all.

⚙ Settings › Interaction › Animations. Replay and showcase follow it.