How are folks solving for 'Entire Family Awake' scenarios

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Just some background, I've got 2 younger kids and they have fans, nightlights, etc. that run while we sleep. Same with Master BR.

I have bed sensors for the Master, but curious what sort of conditions or rules folks are using to determine everyone is awake. Say for whole-home music, turning off night lights, etc.

I currently have a master rule that incorporates the bed sensors, and one of the kids' door sensors. But would need to purchase another door sensor for my daughter's room for that to work for everyone.
But I have motion in both rooms so I could do a simple condition that would look at time of day etc and motion to trigger that they're awake, but putting all this into one rule seems like it will be too complicated - so I could certainly just do a rule for each, then have virtual switches or something, etc...
again just curious what others are doing for an efficient approach and steal some ideas..

tia,
Ryan

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For me I simply use door sensor closed and time. For instance. If 8:30pm-6am and light switch turns on, turn off light switch (this makes it so the door has to be open to turn on the light switch it auto turns off. Also it announced when the door opens.... For my older boy we simply have the lights go off when we turn off the house at night and they turn on from 20%-100% over a 10 min period at 6:45 for school days.

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If you are using LED night lights, they consume less than 1 watt of power. Thus, I would simply turn them on slightly slightly before or after dusk and turn them off around dawn. They are going to make very little impact upon your electric usage. I use night lights that have a built-in illumination sensor that turns the light on and off automatically depending upon ambient light. No connection to the Hubitat is required.

Fans do pull more power...as much as 55 watts for ceiling fans depending upon fan size and speed. However, you could control them by individual room using an occupancy sensor.

I do not do whole house music, so I can't help with that one. I love quiet music when I am sleeping, but my wife can only sleep with white noise type sounds; even quiet music keeps her awake...bummer!

My granddaughter just started college, so we have been empty nesters for many years.

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I also rely heavily on door sensors. I'm continuing to play with various methods of detecting when people are in bed, but most of my awake/asleep automations are built around Contained Motion and Combined Presence. I haven't found a bed presence solution yet I'm entirely happy with.

I have a Contained Motion zone for the bedroom. The kids get special logic in Rule Machine, with a virtual motion sensor that indicates when both doors are closed and my son's bed sensor shows him in it. (There's also a notification sent to my phone if his door is closed and he's been out of bed more than 5 minutes. :smiling_imp:)

In the morning, all the fully-awake routines depend on doors opening. Each kid's door opening will stop their noise machine; our door opening will turn the house as a whole to daytime operation. All of them trigger on the door remaining open for ~45 seconds, since a quick transit doesn't necessarily mean we're trying to get up.

I do have a wake-up lights routine; the lamps in our room slowly build from 1% to 20% until our door opens, and then build from 20% to 75% over the next half hour. My daughter's lamp goes dim red at bedtime, then slowly brightens and turns yellow in the morning. We've reiterated that if it's red, she needs to stay in bed (and ask for help over the monitor if she needs something), but if it's yellow, she can get up whenever she's ready.

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Honestly even under the bed that would probably wake me up (bad enough I wake up when my wife gets out of bed, I'm sensitive to noise) the 20% nightlight works for me though...

This would probably help you too

https://www.amazon.com/THIRDREALITY-Multi-Function-Illumination-Adjustable-Brightness/dp/B0C9LNXYLL

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Regarding bed presence, I picked up 2 of these and then cut the wires to the 'alarm' thing and wired them into the ecolink 2.5 door contact sensors. They take some serious testing around placement and such to get dialed in, but I've been super happy with them.

I have joked about getting 2 more for the kids but I suspect they don't weigh enough to make them work as I want (under the mattress, to avoid the crinkle noise - which would be a hard no for @rlithgow1 lol)

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@rlithgow1 The link you posted to the ThirdReality Multi Function is intriguing and tempting. I had looked at it when you posted it in another thread but hesitated because it has no reviews yet. If you have one of these:

  1. is there a Hubitat driver for it?
  2. is the device reliable? ie does it work well?
  3. do all three functions show up as separate devices in HE?
  4. can you also use it simultaneously as a notification device? ie if x is open light glows red, but if x is closed it works like a regular nightlight and glows warm white upon motion detection?
  5. How low does the lux sensor go?
  6. How long did it take to arrive?

I had been thinking of the similar HomeSeer Zwave device, but this ThirdReality one is better looking (but thicker) and costs less (due to HS shipping). It's also better looking than the Centralite one mentioned in some threads, which is no longer available (but had battery backup).

Seems Amazon has two versions of this.

  1. The item @rlithgow1 posted with 1-2 month shipping: https://www.amazon.com/THIRDREALITY-Multi-Function-Illumination-Adjustable-Brightness/dp/B0C9LNXYLL

  2. A version the purports to support Thread - unclear if it is also Zigbee - anyone know?
    Amazon.com

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It doesn't appear to be Zigbee, from what I can tell. BLE is the only thing I see besides Thread/Matter.

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Generic driver works fine

Works generally well. Haven't had any probs with it. I use this one for my basement stairs. My bathroom ones are centralites. (No longer made)

No one device with multiple attributes.

should be easy enough to set I would think,

Down to 0.

Like any other. You need to observe the lighting you want then note the lux level the unit is seeing.

I had mine in less than 10 days but that was a while back.

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@rlithgow1 : Thank you!
I'm ordering one. Will see how it goes!

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Third Reality MultiSensor arrived today! I'm going to start a new thread specifically for that device so as not to hijack this thread.

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For a better driver you should consider joining the beta

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@rlithgow1
I think that might be over my ski tips. I'd have no clue if something went wrong due to something I did or other...

However, would greatly appreciate any guidance you can give at:

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Join the beta, proper driver available.

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Did you get it set up?

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Yes, got the C7 updated so I got the Third Reality Driver. Plugged the motion/lux/nightlight in near my ERV and then set it up from the computer. Due to an injury after I plugged it in, I did not venture up there to personally test it. However, I figured I could test with arriving guests. I'm using it to control an ERV in the guest area.
What I did not anticipate is that the guests unplugged it as they are not comfortable with it - not sure it they don't believe it really is just a motion/lux sensor, or if they don't like the light or what, but no more testing until they leave...I will probably end up using this for something else and go with a CO2 sensor to control the ERV.

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I hope you chaged them an additional fee for Home Automation Interference. :wink:

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I use a combination of system variables like Time, Hub Mode (Day, Evening, Night, etc), and whether or not my wife's and my phone are charging at a certain time.

Basically, if it's Day mode, and within a certain time frame (say 4:30am - 9am, which covers the times either of us might get out of bed in the morning), and ALL of our phones are off the charger, then it runs my morning routine of turning on lights and Sonos. If my wife's phone is still on the charger, but just mine is removed, it only turns on the downstairs lights and music but does not change the master bedroom lights. Additionally, if the kitchen Roku is already playing, it does not start the kitchen Sonos (sometimes my kids are watching cartoons before I've gotten up).

Once all phones have been disconnected from charging, it sets a Boolean variable in WebCore "@everyoneUp" to true, which can be used to influence other automations throughout the day. This resets to false at midnight, or if I run my Goodnight Routine.

All of this assumes that if our phone is plugged in... we are still in bed. And that if we get up, we unplug our phone and take it with is. Which is 99% the case.

To use the phone charging as a trigger (both are iPhones), I am using the Apple Shortcuts app with a separate Shortcut for "device starts charging" and "device stops charging" for each person's phone. The Shortcut action is to call a webhook GET URL command to run a WebCoRE pistion which sets a virtual switch of our phone's charging status in Hubitat (one for each phone). Then that virtual switch can be used in rules or WebCoRE automations.

I don't have motion sensors or door sensors on the kid's rooms at this point. The automations are more for me, than them. And my youngest is still in a crib... so if he's up... I'm up.

Similar to how another user suggested, I also use lux-sensitive LED nightlights that are completely dumb and turn on in the dark on off with enough light. Not connected to Hubitat at all.

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I just sense motion after a certain time in the morn and if so change to home mode. Other rules then trigger based on mode changing to home such as unlocking doors etc.

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As those kiddos get older I see Home Automation being less effective. Keep these links for future reference :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Oh, I stopped dead-in-my-tracks with the second idea. While there seems to be plenty of hacks for blocking cell communications ....it is clear the FCC will not accept the excuse "to get the kids to bed".