I've noticed that my outdoor lights are being triggered much more frequently over the past week or so. The main environmental factors that might have changed are the cold (hovering just above/below 0 deg. F with a low of -17F tonight) and a light coating of snow. Anyone else seen similar behavior? I've tried reducing the sensitivity to the lowest setting, but it doesn't seem to have helped.
It might be that animals' temperature stays around the same while the surroundings get colder so it's easier for your sensor to pick up the contrast from further away
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Minneapolis here - I haven't noticed any false triggers (or missed events) due to the cold weather lately (nor did I during last Feb's similar uber-cold snap), but between possible increased reflectivity weirdness with this fine, dry, crystalline snow and Inge's idea about critter temperature differential, it's certainly possible.
But I gotta say, that sensor has well exceeded my expectations overall -- I expected more flakiness at the hot/cold temp extremes we get up here, but mine's been really darn solid.
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I actually found my Hue outdoor sensor to be far too sensitive to use as a motion sensor in any helpful way, but it's an excellent outdoor temperature and light sensor so I use it for that now.
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They are pretty sensitive though I havent noticed any correlation to temperature... though of course "cold" in coastal Rhode Island and "cold" in MSP are two very different things.
I have a couple Hue sensors on the front porch to detect folks approaching the front door. I ended up using two and creating a zone motion controller to reject false motion, and a bit of black electrical tape to reduce the field of view.
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I thought that one of ours was acting flaky, but learned that our new neighbors let their dogs run into our yard.
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This was my thought. Both culprits face the street, but didn't seem to notice traffic when it was warmer... maybe they can "see" it now that the ambient conditions are so much colder.
I've got the reverse issue, these sensors also false trigger when the ambient temp goes up beyond about 30C
Do you get lux level or just a % light level ? Confused by references to both in the forum.
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Thanks, what time of day was that or lighting condition?
Saw your reply. Thank you.
About 3:25 pm London UK.
I believe that the Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor reports Illuminance in Lux. But the regular indoor Hue Motion Sensor reports Illuminance in light level (0-100?). Why the difference, I dunno. I wish there was an elegant way to deal with this at the driver level, but it's beyond my ability currently.
Both the indoor and outdoor Hue motion sensors report Illuminance in Lux, they also use the same driver.
Keep in mind that indoor light levels seldom exceed 500 Lux and are frequently less than 100...
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Thanks for the clarification Mike. I'm still confused b/c none of my indoor Hue's register above 100. I think I'll place a couple outdoors (covered, of course) to run a semi-controlled experiment. Something goofy is going on.
doubtfull...
Red-faced, I'd like to publicly declare that @mike.maxwell was right and I was wrong. I took my interior hue motion sensor outside, right in the sun, and sure enough it registered lux over 10,000 pretty quickly. For any morons like me that follow, both hue sensors (interior and exterior) report illuminance in lux. Any understanding to the contrary is old news and incorrect. Sorry for perpetuating a myth.....
For proof, look at the lux reading below:
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This morning, I thought that my backyard sensor was falsely triggered. Upon squinting in the dark, I noticed a deer just outside the chain link fence about 40 feet away. The range was probably augmented by the -5F temperature.
A different thread was looking for a deer detector, but I think that they wanted even more coverage.
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