Satellite became idle

The Satellite became idle trigger fires when one or more Assist satellite 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] return to the idle state. This happens after a voice pipeline run is fully complete: the wake word was detected, the command was listened to, processed, and the spoken response has finished playing.

Use it to automate clean-up or reset actions after each voice interaction. For example, create an automation to restore media volume that was lowered during the response, to turn off indicator lights that were switched on when listening began, to resume a paused media player, or to log the end of each voice session as part of an energy and resource monitoring routine.

Using this trigger from the user interface

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

To use this trigger in an automation:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. In the When section, select Add trigger.
4. From the search box, search for and select Satellite became idle.
5. Select Add target and pick the Assist satellite you want to watch. You can also select an area, a floor, a device, or a label, as described in Targets.
6. Under Trigger when, pick Each, First, or All to control how the trigger behaves when multiple satellites are targeted, as described in Behavior.
7. Under For at least, you can set how long the satellite must keep reporting the idle state before the trigger fires. Leave it at zero to fire immediately.
8. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this trigger 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 trigger as assist_satellite.idle. A basic example looks like this:

trigger: assist_satellite.idle
target:
  entity_id: assist_satellite.living_room
options:
  for: "00:00:02"

This fires two seconds after assist_satellite.living_room returns to the idle state.

Options in YAML

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

Targets of the trigger

This trigger requires a target. The target is the object that Home Assistant will watch. You can select 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 as a target, and Home Assistant will watch every matching assist_satellite entity behind that target.

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

You can also select different target types in one trigger. For example, you can add a specific entity and an area as targets in the same trigger to monitor 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 Trigger when option controls how the trigger responds:

• Each (default): the trigger fires every time any one of the targeted entities transitions. For example, if you monitor three motion sensors in the living room and someone walks past sensor 1, the automation fires. When they walk past sensor 2 a moment later, it fires again. Every individual event counts.
• First: the trigger fires only on the first transition in the targeted group, then waits until all targeted entities have reset before it fires again. For example, if you monitor the same three motion sensors, the automation fires when the first one picks up movement (someone entered the room). The other two firing afterward are ignored, so you get one notification per “someone walked in” event instead of three.
• All: the trigger fires only after the last targeted entity in the group has fired, meaning all of them are now in the expected state. For example, if you monitor the lights in the living room, bedroom, and hallway, the automation fires only once all three have turned off. This is useful for scenarios like “start the robot vacuum only after every light on the floor is off,” so you know the room is truly empty.

Good to know

• Home Assistant also fires this trigger on startup for satellites that are already in the idle state, as their state is loaded from storage. Use the For at least option to filter out these startup events if needed.
• You can also use the For at least option to add a small delay (for example, two to five seconds) before running follow-up actions. This avoids race conditions where an action fires before the satellite has fully settled. This is especially useful when restoring media playback.
• This trigger combined with the Satellite started listening trigger forms a natural bracket around a complete voice session, which is useful for logging session duration or computing the energy cost of each pipeline run.
• Satellites that have the Unavailable or Unknown state are skipped in the evaluation of multi-target behavior.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Go to Settings > Automations & scenes, create a new automation, and add this trigger. Save the automation, then change the state of the targeted entity to watch the trigger fire 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].

More examples

Real scenarios where this trigger fires in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup.

Automation: resume paused media after the satellite finishes responding

When a satellite returns to idle after a voice interaction, this automation resumes any media player that was paused when listening began. This restores your listening session automatically, eliminating the need to manually restart playback and ensuring media player is not left paused, forgotten and consuming standby power.

• Trigger: Satellite became idle
  • Target: Living room Assist satellite
  • For at least: 00:00:02
• Action: Play media
  • Target: Living room speaker

alias: "Resume media after satellite returns to idle"
triggers:
  - trigger: assist_satellite.idle
    target:
      entity_id: assist_satellite.living_room
    options:
      for: "00:00:02"
actions:
  - action: media_player.play_media
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.living_room_speaker

Still stuck?

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

Related triggers

These triggers work well alongside this one:

• Satellite started listening: Triggers after one or more Assist satellites start listening for a voice command.

• Satellite started processing: Triggers after one or more Assist satellites start processing a voice command.

• Satellite started responding: Triggers after one or more Assist satellites start playing back a response.