If you’ve ever gone down the stairs at night while holding the wall & railing for dear life, you know how important lighting is to safely navigate stairs. With just a little bit of light, you can safely and easily make your way down for a midnight snack or refill of water, and automation can help.

You can create a motion-sensing light setup for your staircase so that they turn on and light your path when you need them.

To do this, you can setup a system of lights that are hooked up to a motion sensor at the top and bottom of the stairs.

When the sensors detect movement, they’ll illuminate the stairs entirely, making them safer to navigate. You can also use individual lights on each step if you’re looking for a more versatile option.

Once the person traversing the stairs is gone, the lights will automatically turn off again.

What You Need

This is one of those projects that can be as simple or as complicated as you like.

Choose Your Lights

You will need to decide on the type of stair lights.

Some types are battery powered and can be self-installed, other types require mains voltage and will require an electrical contractor.

Motion Sensor

Depending on your setup, you might have a motion sensor at the top and bottom of the stair that automatically switched the power to the lights as a whole on when movement is detected. An electrical contractor would usually be required for this sort of set up.

Or the more DIY friendly version: you might have motion sensors in each light that control each light individually.