Motion Lighting 'Delay on'

📢 Feedback Feature Requests
1

I think a good addition to Motion Lighting would be the ability to set a delay on. For example I have an area of the house where I may walk through all throughout the day, but not necessarily want to the light to go on every time motion is detected. So if there was an option to delay on, say if motion was active for 5 minutes then turn lights on, otherwise cancel. I know I can do this in RM, but I figured there is a good use case for ML.

2

I can think of an easy-ish workaround without moving the entire lighting automation to Rule Machine:

  1. Create a virtual motion sensor
  2. Create a rule that makes the virtual motion sensor active if one or more of your others become/stay active for a certain number of minutes and makes it inactive otherwise. Something like:
    Trigger: Motion A *changed*

Actions:

IF (Motion A active) THEN
  Delay 0:03:00 (cancelable)
  Run custom command "active" on Virtual Motion Sensor
ELSE
  Cancel Delayed Actions
  Run custom command "inactive" on Virtual Motion Sensor
END-IF
  1. Use this virtual motion sensor in your motion lighting app instead of the "real" one.

Personally, what I do in this situation: unless my "kill switch" is enabled, all of my motion lighting apps turn off the lights even if they're in a mode/time when they wouldn't have been automatically turned on. This means that when I want them on during the day manually (which I do with a Hue Dimmer, Pico Remote, voice control, or whatever method is convenient), I still don't have to worry about manually turning them off. You could probably manipulate a virtual switch instead and use it instead of the motion sensor in conjunction with ML's option to enable/disable "on" actions based on a switch, but I haven't used those options and can't speak to how well that would work for you.

An alternative you might consider is creating a separate mode, maybe "Day - Working," that you can activate somehow (voice, button push, Dashboard, or even a rule like the above except manipulating this mode instead of a sensor) and which will turn on the lights even if regular "Day" mode or whatever wouldn't. Since mode is more pervasive in other apps, this might be a worse idea than the switch idea above, but my modes are almost entirely lighting-oriented, so this is also something that crossed my mind. (Among others, I have a "Day" mode where most lights won't turn on but a "Cloudy" mode where some will, but fewer than my "Evening" mode, which is separate from my sleep/"Night" mode where almost nothing will.)

You may have already considered some of this, but just thought I'd throw out a few ideas besides moving the entire automation to RM (which certainly could work if you wanted to).

1 Like
3

I do like the idea of the virtual motion sensor, I may actually try that out. I do still think it would be a nice addition to ML.

4

Any chance you have a lux device somewhere in the house?

I have but just 1 lux device yet use it for all my motion lighting. My thought is this, if it's dark enough to need a light, i don't want to be walking around... in the dark

Saves me from having a lux device in every room

I know it's not exactly what you ask about, I can't see where I wouldn't want a light to come on if it's dark enough... Just my $0.02

5

I use Darksky for outdoor lux within my motion lighting apps and rules to control lights during the day. It works fairly well, but it's not perfect. What I really need to do is setup multiple outdoor lux sensors on different sides of the house, because depending on time of day and cloud cover certain rooms in the house are darker.

6

Since I only have 1 Lux device, I make the adjustment based on light in the room I wish to control as the value is fairly arbitrary, IMO. Like the thermostat the number is not as important as your comfort, if it reads 100 and you are cold, turn the heater on...

For instance, my pantry is fairly dark so I set the rule with a higher lux to turn on, my laundry is much brighter so it gets a lower lux value... all from the same lux device

Good luck

1 Like
7

The problem I have is that depending on where the sun is certain rooms are darker then others, so it changes throughout the day. So at minimum I need two sensors one on east side and one on west. When it's cloudy there can even be more of a difference.

8

Adding to the above on this old topic - I had already gone down the virtual sensor route but I find it to be temperamental. I second the idea of a delay on built into the ML app because the virtual sensor is a work around.