Smoke detected

The Smoke detected condition passes when one or more smoke sensors are actively detecting smoke. When seconds count, your automation needs to act on confirmed smoke, not on a brief sensor glitch. This condition makes sure that emergency lighting, alarm sirens, or urgent phone notifications only fire while smoke is truly present.

Using this condition from the user interface

If you prefer building automations visually, Home Assistant walks you through this condition step by step. You pick what to check, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To use this condition in an automation:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. In the And if section, select Add condition.
4. Select what you want to check. Under By target (see Targets), pick the area your smoke sensor is in (like your kitchen or garage). You can also select a floor, a device, a specific entity, or a label.
5. From the conditions shown for that target, select Smoke detected.
6. Under Condition passes if (see Behavior), pick Any or All to control how the check behaves when multiple sensors are targeted.
7. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this condition 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 condition as air_quality.is_smoke_detected. A basic example looks like this:

condition: air_quality.is_smoke_detected
target:
  entity_id: binary_sensor.kitchen_smoke

This passes when the kitchen smoke sensor is currently detecting smoke.

Options in YAML

YAML sometimes provides additional options for more complex use cases that are not available through the UI.

Targets

This condition supports targets. A target tells Home Assistant what the condition should check. You can point it at a single entityAn 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], a device, an area, a floor, or a label, and Home Assistant evaluates every matching air_quality entity behind that target.

• Entity: one specific air_quality entity, such as air_quality.living_room.
• Device: every air_quality entity that belongs to a device.
• Area: every air_quality entity in a room or area.
• Floor: every air_quality entity on a floor.
• Label: every air_quality entity that shares a label.

You can also mix target types in one condition. For example, combine a specific entity with an area to check both at once.

Behavior with multiple targets

When you target more than one entity (or select an area, floor, or label that contains several), the Condition passes if option controls how the results combine:

• Any (default): the condition passes if at least one of the targeted entities matches. For example, if you check three smoke sensors and only one of them detects smoke, the condition still passes. This is useful for questions like “is there smoke anywhere in the house?”
• All: the condition passes only when every targeted entity matches. For example, if you check the same three smoke sensors, the condition passes only once all three report cleared. This is useful for “is the entire house safe now?” checks, so your automation does not send an all-clear while one room still has a reading.

Good to know

• Sensors that are unavailable (unavailable) or have an unknown state (unknown) do not count as detecting. With Any behavior, they are skipped. With All behavior, the condition fails if every targeted sensor is unavailable.
• To check whether smoke is no longer detected, use Smoke cleared.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Go to Settings > Automations & scenes, open an automation, and add this condition. Trigger the automation with and without the condition met, and watch whether it continues or stops.

More examples

Real scenarios where this condition gates an automation. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup.

Automation: send a reminder every 5 minutes while smoke is detected

During a smoke event, a single notification is easy to miss. This automation fires every 5 minutes and checks whether the kitchen smoke sensor is still detecting smoke. As long as smoke is present, you keep getting reminders so you stay up to date.

• Trigger: Time pattern: Every 5 minutes
• Condition: Air Quality: Smoke detected
• Target: Kitchen smoke sensor
• Condition passes if: Any
• Action: Notify: Send reminder notification

alias: "Repeating smoke reminder"
triggers:
  - trigger: time_pattern
    minutes: "/5"
conditions:
  - condition: air_quality.is_smoke_detected
    target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.kitchen_smoke
    options:
      behavior: any
actions:
  - action: notify.mobile_app_phone
    data:
      title: "Smoke still detected"
      message: >
        The kitchen smoke sensor is still
        detecting smoke. Check the house.

Still stuck?

The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the condition you’re using and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.

Related conditions

These conditions work well alongside this one:

• Smoke cleared - Tests if one or more smoke sensors are cleared.