I started this in Rule Machine and @jtp10181 Suggested It would be an ideal situation for Room Lighting, so I thought I would give it a try. Based on his suggestion, here is what I have
How does this look? so far it seems to be functioning as intended I couldn't remove the motion sensors (I would uncheck and update and they would still be checked) .
My other thoughts, how would I set this so that if either door remains open, there is motion or If i turn the light on with either a remote switch or the dashboard, it won't just turn off after 10 minutes if I'm still working in the garage.
Hmm, interesting, this is my first time witnessing a "Device Control" grid wherein some of the "Activation Settings" are blank. I had always assumed switches had to be declared either "On" or "Off" so that RL knows what to do with them.
Did you blank out those entries manually/intentionally? If so, I cannot replicate that behavior. Just curious...
If you mean everything but Garage Ceiling, Yes, as that is the only device that needs to be controlled with this rule. The Garage relays, one is the garage door, the other isn't used. the outside lights are controlled by and Event Engine Cog, Sunset to Sunrise. no need to have them controlled here (at this time).
The idea here is if the Inside or Main garage door open, or the motion sensors activate the overhead light turns on. turn off 10 minutes after the doors close (and I guess motion stops since I couldn't remove them) . I would also want a way to keep the lights on if the doors are closed. I'm thinking the motion sensors will cover that , but there always that time you stand still just a little too long and you are in the dark.
If you started the RL instance by selecting a "Room", then RL will default to importing every device assigned to that room. If a device isn't meant to be controlled with the RL instance, then you can remove it from the "Devices to Automate" dropdown.
You should remove the contact sensors closing as a means to turn off. You can remove those by removing the capability from "Means to Turn Off":
First, all the devices you do not want to control de-select them from the "Devices to automate"
For the motion sensors, turn off "motion" as an option in means to activate, that should get rid of them if you dont want that as part of it (not sure why not??)
To prevent it from turning off under certain condition you use the Limit Turning Off section. I have a good example here where I prevent the motion inactive from turning off the bathroom lights if the bath fan is on: [Example] RL Bath Motion with Exhaust Fan and Preset Off
Basically, you could have your motion sensor and the contact sensor as means to turn off. Then at the same time you could have a limit that it wont turn off if there is motion or the contact sensor is still open. Doing that would require both the sensor be closed AND no motion, then the lights would go out.
Getting complicated like this, for some people it might make more sense in RM where you could do a wait for conditions and have it wait for both sensors to be in the correct state before it turns off.
The only reason was that I had been having problems that I couldn't figure out with them before, and the contact seemed more reliable (there were long delay in the motion rule firing, and sometime didn't fire at all). As I'm thinking this through it seems like it definitely couldn't hurt to have that as part of the rule, just not the only part.
The motion sensors were a Zone Motion group of 3 devices, a mix of Z wave and Zigbee, and I Was never 100% certain the Zigbee sensor was working, (my thought is that it was not, all I ever say in log for it was batteries at 100% for almost 2 years).
@jtp10181 I have to admit, the idea of leaving the motion sensors in the mix is growing on me . As of this morning here is how I have this written for RL:
I'd definitely bump up the timeout on the motion sensors. Maybe like 5 minutes. Personally, I'd ditch the contact sensors as a means to turn off. Pretty sure, as written, that's going to turn the lights on when you open the door and turn them off as soon as the door is shut.
Agree with @FriedCheese2006
If you really want the contact sensors to turn the lights off, you will probably want to add an option to limit the turning off when motion is active, and possibly both contact sensors as open. (Similar to my example). This would make it so there would have to be no motion AND all contacts closed before it turned off. Otherwise without that the Means to turn off is an "OR", so if any of those trip the lights go out.
That looks pretty solid to me. Only edge case I can think of is if, for whatever reason, you happen to stand still long enough that the motion goes inactive, and someone opens/closes the door (like wife just checking in on you). That would trigger the lights to turn off. I dunno if there's a time delay you can add for the contact sensors going closed.
