follow-me-stairs/docs/settings.md

Follow-Me settings

This document lists every control that follow-me adds to the sensor. For installation and setup, see the README.

Where the settings are

Place	Contents
The sensor's web page, http://<sensor address>/	Every control in this document
Home Assistant, on the sensor's device page	Every control in this document, when the sensor is added to Home Assistant
The Test screen of the setup wizard	Window, Buffer, Smoothness, Hold, Offset and Approach

A change applies immediately. The sensor keeps every setting after a restart.

Steps

Distances are in steps. One step is the average tread depth that the setup wizard measured on your stairs. A Window of 3 steps lights about three treads on any staircase.

Lights

Control	What it does	Default
Follow-Me Glow	The light that follows people. Off turns follow-me off. It sets the brightness, color, white level and effect of the window.	On, white only, 40%
Follow-Me Night Light	Lights a patch at each end of the stairs. It works when Follow-Me Glow is on or off.	Off. When turned on: white only, 5%

Follow-Me Glow effects: Seasonal, Rainbow, New Year's, Valentine's, St. Patrick's, Easter, Fourth of July, Autumn, Halloween, Haunted, Hanukkah, Christmas, Candy Cane, Snowfall, Fireplace, Aurora, Ocean. An effect replaces the color with a moving pattern, inside the window. The pattern stays fixed to the stairs, and the person walks through it. When Follow-Me Glow turns off, the effect goes back to None.

Seasonal shows the holiday effect for today's date. On days with no holiday, it shows the plain glow.

Dates	Effect
31 Dec to 2 Jan	New Year's
10 to 14 Feb	Valentine's
15 to 17 Mar	St. Patrick's
Good Friday to Easter Monday	Easter
22 Sep to 30 Nov	Autumn
17 to 23 Oct	Haunted
24 to 31 Oct	Halloween
The 8 days of Hanukkah, from 25 Kislev	Hanukkah
1 to 26 Dec	Christmas

Hanukkah takes priority over Christmas on the days they overlap. The sensor sets its clock from the internet (NTP), in the time zone given by the follow_me_timezone substitution in the device configuration. The default is UTC. Until the clock is set, Seasonal shows the plain glow. Fourth of July is not part of Seasonal. Autumn follows the northern hemisphere.

Where the window and the night light overlap, each LED shows the brighter of the two.

Tuning

Control	What it does	Range	Default
Follow-Me Window	The length of the lit window.	1 to 15 steps	3 steps
Follow-Me Buffer	How close the person gets to either end of the window before the window moves. The window stays still while the person is inside it. When the person comes within this distance of either end of the window, the window slides to keep this distance.	0 to 5 steps	1 step
Follow-Me Offset	Moves the window ahead of the person, in the direction they walk. A negative value moves it behind. The shift grows with walking speed, so a person who stands still gets no shift.	-3 to 3 steps	0 steps
Follow-Me Approach	A person off the stairs within this distance of either end lights that end of the stairs. The sensor ignores people farther away.	0 to 6 steps	2 steps
Follow-Me Smoothness	How closely the window follows the radar. 0% follows each radar reading. 100% moves slowly and smoothly.	0 to 100%	50%
Follow-Me Hold	How long the window stays lit after the radar loses a person on the stairs. Then the window fades out.	0 to 60 s	4 s
Follow-Me Fade In	The fade-in time of a window that starts away from the ends of the stairs. A window that starts at either end slides in from that end in 0.25 s.	0.1 to 10 s	1.5 s
Follow-Me Fade Out	The fade-out time after Follow-Me Hold ends. When a person walks off either end of the stairs, the window shrinks toward that end and fades out in 1 s.	0.1 to 10 s	3 s
Follow-Me Night Light Size	The length of each night light patch.	0.5 to 8 steps	2 steps

Switches and choices

Control	What it does	Default
Follow-Me Multi-Person	Off: one window follows one person. On: up to three windows follow up to three people. With it on, a new window starts only near either end of the stairs.	Off
Follow-Me Pause While WLED On	Lets WLED take over the strip while WLED itself is on. On: while WLED itself is on, follow-me sends nothing and the strip shows WLED's own state. WLED can be turned on from its app, its button or Home Assistant. Follow-me starts again when WLED turns off. Off: follow-me lights the strip when WLED is on or off.	On
Follow-Me RGB White	For strips with no white LED only. Sets how the sensor mixes white from red, green and blue: Warm, Neutral or Cool. It applies to Follow-Me Glow and Follow-Me Night Light.	Neutral

Status

These controls are read-only.

Control	What it shows
Follow-Me Setup	What follow-me needs before it can work. See the table below.
Follow-Me Paused	On while WLED itself is on. When the sensor cannot reach WLED, it shows off.
Follow-Me Position	Where the followed person is, in steps down from the top edge of the top step. Empty when nobody is followed. It updates every second.

Follow-Me Setup value	Meaning	What to do
Ready	Follow-me is working.	Nothing.
Not set up	The setup wizard has not saved a setup to this sensor.	Open the setup wizard and complete it.
Radar not found	The sensor cannot find the radar's position readings by name.	Set radar_x_name and radar_y_name in the device configuration to the names of the radar's target X and Y sensors. See the README.
WLED not found	The sensor cannot reach WLED at the address saved by the setup wizard.	Make sure WLED is on the network at that address. To change the address, open the setup wizard and go to the Match screen.
No web server	The device configuration has no web server, so the setup wizard cannot run.	Add web_server: to the device configuration and install it again.

Until Follow-Me Setup shows Ready, the strip stays dark.