Set Smart Lights to Turn On at Sunset (and Off at Bedtime)

Smart “sunset on, bedtime off” lighting is one of those setups you notice immediately. Your home feels lived-in, and you stop thinking about switches.

Smart Home Controller makes this straightforward because your devices are organized by room, you can still one-tap all lights on or off, and automations can run on a schedule or at sunrise/sunset.

Below is a clean way to build it for common lighting device types (smart bulbs, smart plugs controlling lamps, and smart switches). The exact screens can vary a bit by device, but the triggers are the same: Sunset for “on,” and a time schedule for “off.”

What you need

• An iPhone with Smart Home Controller installed
• Tuya-platform or Smart Life-compatible light devices (bulbs, plugs, or switches)
• Your Smart Life login if you already use Smart Life (so your devices can import)
• For new Tuya device pairing, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi

Step 1: Make sure your lights are grouped the way you want

If you haven’t already, organize your lights into rooms first. This matters because it’s easy to pick the wrong device when you create automations.

1. Open Smart Home Controller.
2. Find the room where the lights live.
3. Confirm you see the exact devices you want to control (for example, a bulb vs a plug).

Tip: If your goal is “all living room lights,” make sure every relevant bulb/plug/switch is in that same room. You’ll spend less time later fixing “why didn’t that lamp turn on?”

Step 2: Create the “Turn on at sunset” automation

This automation uses a Sunrise/Sunset trigger. You’re telling the app, “When it becomes sunset here, turn these lights on.”

1. Go to Automations.
2. Tap to add an automation.
3. For Trigger, choose Sunrise/Sunset.
4. Select Sunset.
5. (Optional) Set an offset if you want the lights to come on a little before or after sunset.
6. For Action, choose the device (or devices) and set it to Turn On.
7. If your device supports it (common with RGB bulbs), set brightness and pick a color with the color picker.
8. Choose which days of the week it should run (for example, every day).
9. Save.

A practical way to think about offsets: use it if you don’t want “exact sunset.” Some people prefer lights on earlier as it starts getting dim. Others want them on after it’s truly dark.

Step 3: Create the “Turn off at bedtime” automation

This one is a straight Schedule trigger. Pick a time that matches your routine.

1. Go to Automations.
2. Tap to add another automation.
3. For Trigger, choose Schedule (time-based).
4. Set your bedtime time.
5. Select the days of the week (weeknights only is common).
6. For Action, select the same device(s) and set them to Turn Off.
7. Save.

If you want a softer landing at night, you can also create an extra scheduled automation before bedtime that sets bulbs to a lower brightness or warmer color, then the final bedtime automation turns them off.

Step 4: Pick the right devices (bulb vs plug vs switch)

The “sunset on, bedtime off” routine works with any light device type, but you want to automate the device that actually controls power.

When in doubt, automate the one thing you’d normally use to turn the light on and off.

Step 5: Test it without waiting for sunset

You can sanity-check your setup right away.

1. From the dashboard, manually turn the device on and off (quick controls should run in real time).
2. Confirm you’re controlling the correct device (especially important with multiple lamps).
3. Check the automation list and verify both automations are enabled and set to the expected days.

If your bulb is RGB, test the brightness and color you chose in the automation. You don’t want “bedtime off” to be perfect but “sunset on” to come on at an unexpected color.

If your sunset automation doesn’t run, check these first

Sunset-based routines are great when they work, but when they don’t, it’s usually a simple setting mismatch. Start with the basics.

• Symptom: It never turns on at sunset. Fix: Open the sunset automation and confirm the trigger is set to Sunset (not Sunrise), it’s enabled, and it’s set to run on the correct days of the week.

• Symptom: It ran yesterday but not today. Fix: Check day-of-week selection. It’s easy to accidentally set weekdays only, or miss a day.

• Symptom: It turns on at the wrong time. Fix: Verify your iPhone’s time zone and time settings are correct. Then review the automation for an offset you forgot you added.

• Symptom: The automation ran, but the light didn’t change. Fix: Make sure the device is reachable. If it’s a smart bulb, the physical wall switch must be on. If it’s a lamp on a smart plug, the lamp’s own switch must be on.

• Symptom: Only some lights in the room turn on. Fix: You probably selected the wrong device list when creating the action. Edit the sunset automation and make sure every intended bulb/plug/switch is included.

• Symptom: Commands feel delayed or inconsistent. Fix: Use the dashboard to try manual control. If manual control isn’t reliable, troubleshoot connectivity and device status first, then revisit automations.

Practical options people actually use

You don’t need to overcomplicate this, but a few small choices make it feel “right.”

Choose different bedtime times by day

If you go to bed later on weekends, set the bedtime automation to run only on certain days, then create a second bedtime automation for the other days.

Keep the naming clear so you don’t end up turning lights off early on a Saturday.

Use rooms plus one-tap control as a fallback

Even with great automations, you’ll sometimes want an instant override. Since Smart Home Controller organizes devices by room and supports one-tap control to turn all lights on or off, you can quickly recover from “movie night” or “we’re staying up late.”

The trick is to keep your rooms tidy so one-tap does what you expect.

Consider brightness at sunset

A lot of people don’t actually want 100% brightness at sunset. If your bulbs support brightness control, set a comfortable level for evening and save the “full bright” for a separate manual scene or quick control.

When to contact support

If your devices import correctly from Smart Life, manual control works, but sunrise/sunset automations still don’t trigger when they should, reach out to support@chorus-labs.com with:

• The device type (bulb, plug, or switch)
• Whether it’s a Smart Life login import or a paired Tuya device
• The automation trigger you used (Sunset vs Schedule)

One last practical tip: name your 2 automations so you can spot them instantly later, something like “Living Room, Sunset ON” and “Living Room, Bedtime OFF.”