Bruce, any chance we could see the addition of time-based restrictions added to zone motion controllers? I have a "zone" that limiting it by "mode" alone isn't ideal, it would be nice to be able to restrict it to certain times too. Or as an alternative, perhaps the ability to pause/resume the zone using RM could be added if that were easier?
1 Like
Got ya, didn't realize this app was Mike's "baby" thanks!
normally one would place those restrictions within the rule that's subscribing to the motion zone.
Basic, ie mode restrictions are included, but the intent wasn't to duplicate the much more sophisticated restrictions available in RM.
Are you not able to use the restrictions within RM to meet your requirements?
I'm using a motion aggregation zone with a 10 minute timeout to activate a "sleep mode" when no activity is present for 10 minutes in the main living area between 10:30p and 7:00a and the current mode is day,night,or twilight. The "issue" is that I only really need the zone active between 10:00p and 7:00a. My normal modes are set by outdoor luminance and being that I live in Alaska restricting the zone to only twilight or night doesn't work since during the summer months those modes don't become active until well after midnight if at all.
I currently have the my RM rule setup to only activate within the time window, but it seems wasteful to have the zone becoming active/inactive throughout the day if it's not being used?
probably, but there's many many more events being sent from the individual sensors then the aggregation zone...
Good point, so the motion zones don't take any more resources to manage than any other events? If so this is just my OCD getting the best of me from seeing the extra logging? 
an event is an event is an event...
Sure the app is going to load on each sensor event, but restricting this isn't going to magically free up a ton of resources on your hub...
4 Likes
Another nice thing to add would be to use a Contact sensor open and/or close as if it a motion event. The use case is to turn on the outside lights if any of the motion sensors trigger, or any of the doors open. That way I could use the awesome builtin motion lighting app w/ it's dim on mode changes and superior lux lockout capabilities. Right now I'm just using 2 simple lighting rules but the outside lights are on way too much...
Then it's no longer a Zone Motion Controller but Rule Machine. 
You can do everything you want in RM, including tying a contact sensor to a virtual motion sensor and then using that in Zone motion. Why you would want to do that, I'm not sure but you could.
I have a triggered zone setup for my back porch lights using the door contact and the exterior motion sensor, keeps the racoons from turning the lights on at night...
1 Like
