I have a "wine bar" area that is part of a larger room. The area is marked Wet Bar in the attached graphic. Can anyone suggest a type of motion or presence sensor that would only fire IF someone crosses into the Wine Bar? I added A/B/C markers to make it easier to discuss location.
Basically I'm trying to avoid the sconce lighting in that area to turn on when people just walk by. Interested in creative suggestions!
Consider A or C, if the adjacent walls extended even a few inches, thus meaning it would only go active if someone actually crossed the A-C line. But, lacking those walls, you can do something similar by shielding the Rec Room side of a motion detector at A or C with a small piece of cardboard.
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Paper tube around the sensor of a motion detector.
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Pressure sensors under the carpet (if it carpeted).
No carpet, it’s LVP. I’ll trying to imagine a cardboard tube that doesn’t look ghetto.
How are you planning to mount the motion sensor? Depending on the configuration, I’ll make an argument for B. You could mount the motion sensor up near the wall/ceiling joint and angle it downwards towards the entrance to the wet bar. Then, turn down the sensitivity of it to minimize the distance. With the correct angle, this would force someone to come into the wet bar area to trigger motion.
Open to anywhere. Possible high in the B position and facing down. I have a lot of different sensors and I’m not sure any of them have that level of adjustability. Recommendations?
I am guessing that you are not really trying to protect the "area" but are more interested in Keeping people out of the liquor. Sooo. Don't use motion sensors at all. Just put Switches on the doors to the liquor cabinets. It is very easy to defeat a Motion Sensor. A Switch inside the cabinet, not so much.
I do something similar with an Aqara FP2 in a few locations. 2 options to consider:
- Rule activates when people cross a first threshold, then light turns on when they cross a second threshold.
- Rule activates when there is presence (motion is active) in a certain zone for a certain amount of time (longer than it would typically take to just walk by).
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Just realized that the FP1 is discontinued. But it also can detect and alert if someone crosses left to right or the reverse.
Philips Hue has the ability. I think Zooz’s does as well. Setting up an Aqara FP2 and utilizing its zone feature could really help as well. The FP2 would allow for presence detection in only certain zones. Plus with the new HomeKit Controller Integration, you would get local control as well. You would just need to use the Aqara app to set up the zones and upgrade the firmware.
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I second the Aqara FP2 solution. I have three running in my house (kitchen, master bath, and living/dining area), and have multiple zones in each that do essentially what you are looking to do-- turn lights on/off in various regions of a space, and I also set different brightness levels depending on time of day (think of night lighting for the bathroom).
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Sounds like a good idea. Anyone know if the Sonoff is able to do the same thing? Seems like the same features for half the price. Amazon.com: SONOFF SNZB-06P Zigbee Human Presence Sensor, Zigbee Smart Motion Detector with 5.8GHZ cmWave Radar, Requires ZigBee Bridge (1) : Electronics
No, the SONOFF is a motion/presence sensor without any bells or whistles. No zones, etc., no directional indicators.
Apparently you can still get the FP1 (NOT FP1e) at AliExpress and a few on EBay.
I second this approach for its simplicity.
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Yes, if it works. I have two FP2, both on a latest firmware. No matter what I am trying they leaving a ghosts near 75% of time. This way it is impossible to create a reliable automations based on these FP2 sensors. But the idea is good if it works reliably. So far this is not a case.
If there is a bar counter almost any sensor under the counter pointed at the floor could be pointed in such a way that it only picked up movement near the bar.
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Clever. I’ll try that. Thanks!
I live in a condo and my unit is the first one by the door into my floor. I wanted to know when someone was at my door, (which is recessed from the hall) but not just passing by in the hall.
The hall ceiling is the typical acoustic tiles held up by metal bars. That made it easy for me to attach a Hue motion sensor via its built in magnet. I then not only moved it close to my door, but put a piece of masking tape over about 1/2 of the sensor. I played around a bit with how much of the sensor to cover and how far in to place the sensor. As the Hue sensor is on the ceiling and the piece of tape is beige and small it is virtually unnoticeable by anyone just using the area.
If you don’t have a magnetic area on the ceiling use something like a command strip that you can affix and move easily without messing up your ceiling.
