Scene on
The Scene on action triggers an Insteon scene to turn on. An Insteon scene is a grouping of devices that respond together, identified by a group or scene number.
This is useful when you want an automation to activate a scene that is stored on your Insteon devices, so all the linked devices switch on at once without Home Assistant controlling each one individually.
Using this action from the user interface
If you prefer building automations and scripts visually, Home Assistant walks you through this action step by step. You pick what to target, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.
To turn on an Insteon scene from an automation or a script:
- Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
- Open an existing automation or script, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
- If you’re setting up a new automation, add a trigger in the When section. Scripts don’t need a trigger. They run when something else calls them.
- In the Then do section, select Add action.
- From the search box, search for and select Insteon: Scene on.
- Enter the Group number of the scene to turn on.
- Select Save.
This action does not support targets. In the UI, you are not prompted to choose an area, device, entity, or label.
Options in the UI
Using this action in YAML
If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required.
In YAML, refer to this action as insteon.scene_on. A basic example looks like this:
action: insteon.scene_on
data:
group: 25
This turns on Insteon scene 25.
Options in YAML
Try it yourself
Ready to test this? Open Developer tools > Actions, search for this action, fill in the fields, and select Perform action. You see what happens on your actual entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more] without writing a line of YAML.
Still stuck?
The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the action you’re calling and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.
AI assistants like ChatGPT or Claude can also explain actions or suggest the right one when you describe what you want in plain language.
Related actions
These actions work well alongside this one:
- Scene off: Triggers an Insteon scene to turn off.