Midnight sun ended
The Midnight sun ended trigger fires when the midnight sun period is over and the sun dips below the horizon again around midnight. The midnight sun is the part of the year at high latitudes when the sun stays above the horizon for a full 24 hours. Home Assistant calculates this for your home location.
Use it to switch back to your normal day-and-night setup. For example, re-enable automations that depend on sunset, or send yourself a reminder that dark evenings are returning.
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:
- Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
- Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
- In the When section, select Add trigger.
- From the search box, search for and select Midnight sun ended.
- Optionally, set an offset to fire before or after the midnight sun ends:
- Under Offset, enter how far from the end of the midnight sun to fire, such as 1 day.
- Under Offset type, select Before or After.
- Select Save.
Options in the UI
The length of time from the end of the midnight sun when the trigger fires, in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. By default there is no offset, so the trigger fires exactly when the midnight sun ends.
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 sun.midnight_sun_ended. A basic example looks like this:
trigger: sun.midnight_sun_ended
This fires when the midnight sun period ends. To fire a fixed amount of time before or after it ends, add the offset and offset_type options:
trigger: sun.midnight_sun_ended
options:
offset:
days: 1
offset_type: after
This fires one day after the midnight sun ends.
Options in YAML
The length of time from the end of the midnight sun when the trigger fires. Accepts a time period mapping in hours, minutes, seconds, and days. Also accepts a duration string in HH:MM:SS format. Combine it with offset_type to fire before or after the midnight sun ends.
Good to know
- This trigger does not use a target. It applies to the sun at your configured home location.
- The midnight sun only happens at high latitudes, roughly above the polar circles. Elsewhere, this trigger never fires.
- The midnight sun ends when the sun’s daily low point, at solar midnight, drops below the horizon again for the first time. From then on, Sunrise and Sunset resume.
- To react when the midnight sun period begins, use Midnight sun started.
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].
For this trigger, there is no target entity to change. Because the midnight sun happens at most once a year, test the automation by temporarily switching to a trigger you can control while you build the rest of it.
More examples
Real scenarios where this trigger fires in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup.
You don’t need to edit YAML to use these examples. Copy a YAML snippet from this page, open the automation editor in Home Assistant, and press Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V on Mac). Home Assistant automatically converts the pasted YAML into the visual editor format, whether it’s a full automation, a single trigger, a condition, or an action.
Automation: announce the end of the midnight sun
When the midnight sun period ends and the sun starts setting again, send a notification so you know dark evenings are returning.
- Trigger: Midnight sun ended
-
Action: Send a notification message
-
Target: My Device (
notify.my_device)
-
Target: My Device (
YAML example for a midnight sun ended notification
alias: "Notify when the midnight sun ends"
triggers:
- trigger: sun.midnight_sun_ended
actions:
- action: notify.send_message
target:
entity_id: notify.my_device
data:
message: >
The midnight sun is over. Nights are returning.
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.
AI assistants like ChatGPT or Claude can also explain triggers or suggest the right one when you describe what you want in plain language.
Related triggers
These triggers work well alongside this one:
-
Midnight sun started: Triggers when the midnight sun period starts and the sun stops setting.
-
Polar night ended: Triggers when the polar night period ends and the sun rises again.
-
Sunset: Triggers when the sun sets.