Thermostat is cooling

The Thermostat is cooling condition passes when a thermostat 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] is actively cooling. A thermostat set to cool mode does not necessarily run continuously. It cycles on and off to maintain the target temperature. Use Thermostat is cooling to confirm the system is in an active cooling cycle, rather than just set to cool mode and idle.

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 Thermostat is cooling 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 thermostat is in (like your living room or bedroom). You can also select a device, a specific entity, or a label.
5. From the conditions shown for that target, select Thermostat is cooling.
6. Under Condition passes if (see Behavior), pick Any or All to control how the check behaves when multiple thermostats are targeted.
7. Under For at least, set how long the thermostat must have been actively cooling before the condition passes. Leave it at zero to pass immediately.
8. 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, Thermostat is cooling is referred to as climate.is_cooling. A basic example looks like this:

condition: climate.is_cooling
target:
  entity_id: climate.living_room

This passes when the living room thermostat is actively running the air conditioner to cool the space.

Options in YAML

Targets of the condition

This condition requires a target. The target is the object that Home Assistant will check. You can point the condition 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 will evaluate every matching climate entity behind that target.

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

You can also select different target types in one condition. For example, you can add a specific entity and an area as targets in the same condition to check both of them 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

• A thermostat can be set to cool mode but not actively cooling if it has already reached its target temperature and is idling. Use Thermostat is in HVAC mode if you only care about the mode setting.
• Thermostats that are unavailable (unavailable) or have an unknown state (unknown) do not count as actively cooling. With Any behavior, they are skipped. With All behavior, the condition fails if every targeted thermostat is unavailable.
• This condition checks the current action of the thermostat, not its mode. To check if a thermostat is simply on (any active mode) or off, use Thermostat is on or Thermostat is off.

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: close blinds when air conditioning is running

When the living room thermostat is actively cooling and the sun is high in the sky, close the blinds to reduce heat gain. This helps the air conditioner work more efficiently without having to guess whether it’s actually running.

• Trigger: State: Living room thermostat started cooling
• Condition: Sun elevation above 30
• Condition: Thermostat is cooling
  • Target: Living room thermostat
• Action: Close cover

alias: "Close blinds when cooling"
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: climate.living_room
    attribute: hvac_action
    to: "cooling"
conditions:
  - condition: sun
    after: sunrise
    after_offset: "01:00:00"
    before: sunset
    before_offset: "-01:00:00"
  - condition: climate.is_cooling
    target:
      entity_id: climate.living_room
actions:
  - action: cover.close_cover
    target:
      entity_id: cover.living_room_blinds

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:

• Thermostat is on: Tests if one or more thermostats are on.

• Thermostat is heating: Tests if one or more thermostats are heating.

• Thermostat is drying: Tests if one or more thermostats are drying.

• Thermostat is in HVAC mode: Tests if one or more thermostats are set to a specific HVAC mode.