I'm thinking about getting an indoor motion sensor, but had a few concerns so I wanted to know how motion sensors work with Hubitat.
For example, I do want lights to come on when motion is detected (obviously) and then turn off after a set time. But what about if I want to keep the lights on? If I, for instance, hit a button to turn on lights, will they stay on and ignore the motion sensor?
Currently I'm looking at the Hue motion sensor because they also have an illuminance sensor built in. I was thinking about setting something up where the indoor light would dim itself up or down depending on the luminance that the sensor saw. But then I realized if it gets dim and the lights turn on, then the illuminance will never go back down, right? So I was thinking instead of using the illuminance sensor of a different room (e.g. the living room) to control a separate room (e.g. the office).
Would love to hear your thoughts and see what you guys have done with motion sensors.
For anyone else that comes across this in the future, here's what I did for learning the Motion app, because it's a bit intimidating at first.
I watched the two Motion Lighting App tutorial vids in this playlist:
I reviewed the documentation, where it details what each setting means.
And then for testing I created a bunch of virtual devices to test with (so this way I didn't have to invest in a motion sensor, before I knew it could do what I wanted). I also created a Test dashboard with my virtual devices so I could monitor them all at the same time.
On the left I have the Virtual Motion Sensor up so I can trigger motion manually. On the right is the dashboard (mine includes the virtual bulb, a virtual button (with 2 buttons), and the sensor which just shows if motion is active or inactive.
To create virtual devices go to your Devices page, click Add Virtual device, and then under the Type dropdown search for "virtual" and you'll see the whole list of virtual devices that Hubitat supports.
I use two rules in RM to catch the motion active/inactive and set dimmer/switch by mode.
Then I created a virtual switch controlled by the physical wall switch, Alexa, and Homebridge/HomeKit. Two more rules in RM to handle the virtual switch state changes. When it’s switched on, I disable the motion on/off rules and set the dimmer/switch by mode. When it’s switched off, I enable the motion on/off rules and turn off the lights.
That built-in motion app looks really good, actually. There’s a lot going on in there with options. Had to hit the documentation. But very close to what I have with a virtual switch and RM rules. Just had to add the final “lights off” to my switch controller. Didn’t find the option to turn off lights with button when I re-enable the motion detection.
Button 1 manually turns on the light and disables motion sensed lighting.
Button 2 manually turns off the light and enables motion sensed lighting.
EDIT: I also found that "Don't turn off if already on" switch should be enabled in the Off options.
I can turn on the light from a different source (e.g. Google Assistant) and motion going from active to inactive will not turn the light off.
