Hello - I'm new here but have been lurking a while trying to learn and soak in as much as possible. I've had some bumps in the road but have cut the wink cord and jumped in the deep end of the pool.
I'm not certain my WAF (wife acceptance factor) we in a favorable position, but it seems we are at an impass in our (my) smart home en-devour. The WAF is on life support and she's old me to get ride of it. I've calmed her for the moment, but could really use some rock solid community help so I can improve the user experience.
I'm currently working with some color lights in my kitchen that I'm triggering via a motion sensor. I'm using mode manager to set color temperature brightness. I have different timeout settings to turn the lights off based on no motion, and that seems to be what is causing the issue. I again readjusted the timer but one comment my wife had is "you can't program for every scenario and what I want". Touche - and that's where I am stuck. Her frustration lies in the lights turning off even though she in still in the kitchen doing dishes or using a cutting board which isn't causing enough motion to trigger the sensor. Do I simply as second or third sensor in another location?
I really enjoy the lights coming on automatically at the correct level and color temp. Not having to fish for a device is how a smart home is supposed to work. Yes its frustrated when the lights turn off, but that's part of the fun (I think) trying to tweak the system.
Has anyone else run into this and what solutions have you found to improve things. Any help is much appreciated.
I use Motion Lighting along with two Iris v2 Motion sensors. Those two sensors, along with a reasonably long timeout before turning off, has prevented all unexpected lights turning off. WAF is actually better than it has ever been. All closets, bathrooms, the garage, and laundry room all have automated lighting. It is rare that we ever need to touch a light switch these days.
I second that, I just recently picked up about 8 of those Iris v2 Motion Sensors, and prior to implementing those was extremely frustrated by the really low timeouts of other motion sensors have causing problems with motion lighting.
Also was extremely impressed on the distance away from those sensors that it detects motion, at least 30 ft away.
Like the posters above, I think this is good advice. If the motion sensor doesn't see you everywhere you might be when you're occupying the room and the timeout is short enough for that to matter, then I'd say there's a problem, and this sounds like a good solution.
It's worth noting that many apps, including Motion Lighting, allow you to use some sensors as "turn on" sensors and some as "keep on" sensors. This means you don't necessarily have to add it as something that would turn on the lights but could just use it as something that would keep the lights on if the automation already turned them on, which you may want to do if the sensor is in a "bad" spot and might see you when you aren't really in the room (e.g., just walking by).
Depending on what sensors you have, adjusting the sensitivity may also help. Most Zigbee ones don't let you adjust this, and I haven't found most Z-Wave ones to be usable unless the sensitivity is pretty high, but your mileage may vary. I find the Lutron ceiling-mounted "motion" (occupancy) sensors to be excellent at detecting even small movement, like me just sitting at my desk, without being overly sensitive, so if you happen to be using Radio RA2, that's an excellent option. (If you aren't, it's not compatible with Caseta, RA2 Essentials doesn't expose them in a way that's usable to Hubitat, and RA2 isn't exactly cheap--though you can find used Main Repeaters for cheap on eBay if you're lucky.)
I have 3 separate motion sensors covering the kitchen and nook, I have them configured using zone aggregation in zone motion manager and a 10 minute timeout, if I only had one sensor the timeout would be double that probably...
You don't actually need ZMC to aggregate the zones, motion lighting can do that as well, i just prefer selecting one sensor as opposed to three in the relevant rules.
In any event, just bump up the timeout settings, remember you had nothing but lights left on all the time before, so even if you set the timeout to 30 minutes, you're still ahead of the game...
I also use Zone Motion Controllers. I have three motion sensors in my family room / kitchen, which is an odd shape, and two motion sensors in my bedroom. I have a kitchen zone and a bedroom zone that are used in Motion Lighting and in RM. It works really well to keep the lights on when I'm in there.
I have mostly Sylvania motion sensors (same manufacturer as the Iris?). They are very sensitive which is great for our kitchen and garage. They also have great battery life. I have 5 with batteries almost 2 years old, and with 4 teenagers we have an active household. I have one Hue that ended up in the Master Bathroom because it was harder to trigger for us at least.
It took me a while to find a good place and angle to mount the sensor in the bathroom to solve the same issue. I had to make a mount to give me the angle needed to see the whole room. I ended up putting it near but not at ceiling height, at about a 45-ish degree angle. Before that, even with two sensors at eye height, I would get the false turn-offs. I don't know why most of these sensors are built to mount only flat, or don't have better mounting systems.
My Sylvanias are mounted in corners and where the ceiling and wall meet. Still using the original tape they came with. The sides of the sensor are angled to fit perfectly in these places.
Same as above replies. I had problems in the master bathroom specifically, getting enough coverage to avoid the lights turning off with someone in the shower or tub. I tried playing with the timeout but it ended up being long enough that I figured it was better to add more sensors instead. 3 sensors with a 6 minute timeout did the trick. In a large area like the kitchen I'd definitely add more sensors based on where someone actually stands for long periods of time.
I have two motion sensors in my kitchen with varying timeouts depending on mode (1 minute for monring/afternoon, 5 minutes for evening/night and 45 seconds for overnight). I also created a "pause" virtual switch that can be triggered via a button remote or Alexa. When the virtual switch is on, the rule for motion gets paused and the switch turns off automatically after an hour (to prevent the lights staying on for hours at a time). This allows my wife (or guests) to keep the lights on (and adjust them brighter or dimmer) as needed without a bunch of crazy logic or long time outs.
I've done the same for the lights in most rooms of the house. I have a TON of virtual switches and Alexa routines, but having a manual override is awesome for those one off situations.
I have to agree with you. My wife does not want something that she has to take out a phone to control or tell Alexa some phrase that she won't remember, since she didn't create the rule. I have the Hue, Samsung, and Sylvania dimmers throughout the house for manual controls/override. Her favorite is actually the Samsung button. When you are trying to get buy-in, you have to keep is simple.
I don't have the RA2 occupancy sensors yet but are you saying that I won't be able to use them in Hubitat (start a fan connected to a zwave device for example.
Sorry for jumping in like this, i know this wasn't the original question.
No, RA2 occupancy sensors are perfectly usable on Hubitat, but you need to use them with a "full" Radio RA2 system, e.g., one with a RA2 Main Repeater. They are not usable when paired to the less expensive RA2 Select system (sort of an awkward hybrid between Caseta and RA2 but using RA2 devices, if you aren't familiar) because they are not exposed over the telnet interface Hubitat uses. Lots of people have requested this, so maybe Lutron will change that some day...
But once you get them on Hubitat, they are just as usable as any other device. Hubitat doesn't care at that point where it comes from--like any device, you can use it to automate any other device that you want.
Mike - am I correct that if one does it via adding all sensors to the ML trigger, that in the ML instance one has to add all the same sensors to the "Additional Motion Sensors to keep on" section? I've had some anomalous turning off of lights when I used multiple individual sensors as triggers. I moved to ZMC aggregation and that seems to work as expected.
Do you mean that if you add a sensor to "Motion Sensors" (the ones that turn the lights on), should you also add it to "Additional motion sensors to keep on"? If so, no--that second setting is optional. (Actually, both look like they are, but I can think of very few cases where someone would want to use Motion Lighting without at least setting up the first.) The "turn on" sensors will also keep the lights on, so you shouldn't need to add them twice.
...or at least that's how it's supposed to work. I'm not saying you couldn't have discovered a bug or something. I don't have many automations set up on Motion Lighting anymore, so I can't speak from much experience here at this point.
