Sun is up

The Sun is up condition passes when the sun is above the horizon at your location. Home Assistant works this out from your home location, so it stays accurate as sunrise and sunset shift through the seasons.

Use it to gate an automation so it only runs during daylight, like skipping the porch light when the sun is already up, or only watering the garden after the sun has risen.

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. From the search box, search for and select Sun: Sun is up.
5. Select Save.

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 sun.is_up. It has no options:

condition: sun.is_up

This passes while the sun is above the horizon.

Good to know

• This condition does not use a target. It checks the sun at your configured home location.
• “Up” uses the same horizon definition as sunrise and sunset, so the condition flips at exactly those moments. For the opposite check, use Sun is set.
• This is a point-in-time check. It reflects whether the sun is up at the moment the automation runs, not whether it rose or set.

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: only turn on the porch light after dark

When motion is detected at the front door, turn on the porch light, but only when the sun is down.

• Trigger: Motion detected at the front door
• Condition: Not
  • Condition: Sun: sun is up
• Action: Turn on light
  • Target: Porch light

alias: "Porch light on motion after dark"
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door_motion
    to: "on"
conditions:
  - condition: not
    conditions:
      - condition: sun.is_up
actions:
  - action: light.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: light.porch

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:

• Sun is set: Tests if the sun is set.

• It is morning twilight: Tests if it is morning twilight, optionally of a specific type.

• Sun elevation: Tests the sun’s elevation against a threshold you set.