Garage door opened

The Garage door opened trigger fires when a targeted garage door changes to open. Use it when you want Home Assistant to respond as soon as a garage door starts to open or is detected as open.

This trigger is useful for turning on lights when you arrive, sending alerts if the garage opens while nobody is home, and starting routines that depend on access to the garage.

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 Garage door opened.
5. Select what you want to monitor. Under By target (see Targets), pick the area your garage door is in, like your garage or driveway. You can also select a floor, a device, a specific entity, or a label.
6. Under Trigger when (see Behavior), pick Each, First, or All.
7. Under For at least, enter how long the garage door must stay open before the trigger fires. Leave it at zero to fire right away.
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 garage_door.opened. A basic example looks like this:

trigger: garage_door.opened
target:
  entity_id: cover.garage_door

This fires when cover.garage_door opens.

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 garage_door entity behind that target.

• Entity: one specific garage_door entity, such as garage_door.living_room.
• Device: every garage_door entity that belongs to a device.
• Area: every garage_door entity in a room or area.
• Floor: every garage_door entity on a floor.
• Label: every garage_door 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 (any in YAML, 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 (first in YAML): 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 (last in YAML): 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

• This trigger works with garage door contact sensors that use the garage_door device class and garage door covers that use the garage device class.
• If an entity comes back from unavailable or unknown, that recovery does not count as the garage door opening.
• The for option only fires the automation if the garage door stays open for the entire time you set.

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: turn on the garage entry light when the garage door opens after dark

If you come home after sunset, this automation turns on the light near the garage entry as soon as the garage door opens.

• Trigger: Garage door opened
  • Target: Garage door
• Action: Turn on light

alias: "Turn on the garage entry light when the garage door opens after dark"
triggers:
  - trigger: garage_door.opened
    target:
      entity_id: cover.garage_door
conditions:
  - condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: sun.sun
    attribute: elevation
    below: 0
actions:
  - action: light.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: light.garage_entry

Automation: notify you if the garage door opens while nobody is home

If the garage door opens after everyone has left, this automation sends a notification right away so you can check what happened.

• Trigger: Garage door opened
  • Target: Garage door
• Condition: Numeric state
  • Entity: Home zone
  • Below: 1
• Action: Send a notification message
  • Target: My Device (notify.my_device)

alias: "Notify if the garage door opens while nobody is home"
triggers:
  - trigger: garage_door.opened
    target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.garage_door_contact
conditions:
  - condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: zone.home
    below: 1
actions:
  - action: notify.send_message
    target:
      entity_id: notify.my_device
    data:
      title: "Garage door opened"
      message: "The garage door opened while nobody was home."

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:

• Garage door closed: Triggers after one or more garage doors close.