I'm trying to configure my motion lighting app so that if I manually turn on my lights (with a switch), then the motion sensor detects motion, it doesn't turn the lights off when motion stops. I think this is what the "Don't Turn Off if Already On" option is supposed to be for, but it doesn't seem to be working.
Repro steps: I turn the physical Backyard Light switch on. wait a little bit, walk in front of the motion sensor, then wait 5 minutes.
Expected behavior: All the lights come on when I turn the switch on, then remain on indefinitely
Actual behavior: All the lights come on when I turn the switch on, then turn off roughly 3 minutes after motion ends.
I'd really appreciate any help figuring out what's going wrong.
You have the app set to "Switches to Activate On" as Backyard Light. This is incongruous with "Don't turn off if already on". You are activating the app by the having the Backyard Light be defined as turning on the lights. Remove the backyard light from that setting and I am pretty sure it will work the way you are expecting.
So you're saying that there isn't a way (with the motion lighting app) to both have the switch turn on the lights, and have them turned on via motion, without also having them automatically turn off if motion is detected then stopped?
No, what I'm saying that if that is what you want, you have to remove them from the setting to turn on the lights. That option should say "To Activate Motion Lighting" because that's what it does. The switch is still going to turn on the lights physically. Motion lighting won't go in and disconnect the driver from the device. That's not how it works.
If you remove that one setting, it will work the way you want.
No, I mean the 4 lights in the "Lights to Turn On" section. That gives me an idea though, I tried using the mirror app to make the 3 other lights follow the backyard light switch, then I removed all but it from the "lights to turn on" list and removed it from "switches to activate on". We'll see if that works.
That said, it still feels like it should have worked the way it was originally set up
Let me see if I can explain this a different way....
When you enable the option "Switch to turn on" you are not telling the system to turn the lights on as a group. What you are telling the system is that if that light is turned on, start the motion lighting app. So, turning that on will NOT be recognized as previously being on because turning it on is literally the same as motion being detected by a motion sensor.
That's why all 4 lights turn on with the one switch. Is that clear? You cannot enable that option and expect the lights to stay on after motion goes inactive when you turn it on manually. It is just not going to work that way because that is not how it is supposed to work. Okay? Have we accepted that?
This app is for motion lighting. There is a separate app called Groups and Scenes that allows you to group lights together to control them all together. That is how you should group lights together to be contorlled together.
But it isn't. You are welcome to keep fighting it but it's a losing battle. If you can't accept that, you should also return your hub right now because if you expect it to work exactly how you want and not have to learn anything about how it works, then you are going to be very frustrated.
Is groups and scenes the right app to use here? I thought it was mostly for exposing the group as a single light in dashboards/voice assistants/etc, not for having a single physical switch control multiple items. Let me know if I'm wrong though, I'm still learning. It seems to be working with the Mirror app but I'm new so I'd love to know if there's a better way to do things.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that's how it works, and I'm grateful for your help. That said, this is clearly an edge case and I was just sharing my perspective as a user on how I'd expect the various settings of the motion lighting app to interact (when you select "don't turn off if already on", then I'd expect the end of motion not to override the explicit user intent of turning it on). If you don't care about my opinion fine, but it's no reason to get aggressive.
It really isn't an edge case at all. This is a very common use of the app. If you wanted to have the switch enable the motion app, how else would you do it. You are just trying to use it for something that it wasn't intended. That's all. The mirror app is only useful if you do not intend to ever control the other 3 lights independently of the light you have chosen as the "master".
