The current Tapo L930 strip can be reported as on in Home Assistant while remaining physically dark. The automation has intent, but the actuator state is not trustworthy enough.
Home Assistantrebuilding
Directional staircase lighting
Reworking unreliable motion lighting as a directional, addressable LED system with clear state and graceful fallback behaviour.
Separate direction detection, automation state and light rendering. Use top and bottom sensors to select an animation direction, Home Assistant to own the decision, and a WLED-compatible controller to render the effect.
The replacement is in design. The intended result is bottom-to-top animation on lower entry and top-to-bottom animation on upper entry, while retaining predictable timeouts and manual behaviour.
Abstract architecture / sensitive detail removed
01 Top or bottom sensor
02 Home Assistant logic
03 WLED controller
04 Addressable LED strip
05 Observed result
Diagnosis before replacement
The visible symptom is simple: motion occurs, Home Assistant shows the strip as active, but the staircase remains dark. That can be a stale integration state, a failed device command or a controller that acknowledges work it does not physically perform.
Before replacing hardware, the useful evidence is the difference between requested, reported and observed state. That model will also be used to verify the new design.
Directional logic
The bottom sensor should select a bottom-to-top effect. The top sensor should select the reverse. Near-simultaneous triggers, retriggering, occupancy timeouts and controller unavailability all need deliberate behaviour rather than a collection of loosely related automations.
Replacement design
The candidate architecture uses addressable LEDs and WLED through a suitable controller, potentially from Gledopto or a similar vendor. Hardware selection is not final, and this page will remain marked rebuilding until the installation and physical result are verified.
Notes to future me
What this project is teaching me.
- Reported state is useful only when it represents the physical result.
- Direction is system state, not merely two independent triggers.
- A decorative effect still needs a boring fallback path.
This page explains design intent and lessons without publishing credentials, private addressing, access paths, device identifiers or a complete security topology.