I'm trying to setup a simple Motion Lighting rule. Everything is working so far, except if I modify the lights and wait a minute, my motion sets back to the initial scene. Based on this comment, I didn't think this should happen?
This happens if I adjust the lights via the wall switch or Google Home.
My setup is the following
"S -Basement - Lights On" is a scene. "Basement Fireplace" is an Inovelli switch. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Check to see if you have Override on or off: If you want using the physical switch or Google Home to override, this must be on as shown.
For Google Home to override, it needs to use the virtual device that has the name you assign here (it says Alexa, but applies for Google Home also):
Thanks Bruce -- I'll look at this tonight. I think I turned off "Enable override with physical switch" during my debugging. I did at one point have the Alexa name, but must have removed it too. I know at one point I did have it setup this way.
I'm not sure I understand what the Alexa name does exactly. Is there any documentation?
My situation:
I have two scenes in my basement
S - Basement Lights On
S - Basement TV Lights On
Currently, I have a Google Home Routine to set these scene switches directly.
I want the standard basement lights on when motion is detected the first time. If I adjust the lights via Google (or any other way, say a dashboard or physical button) I want to the lights to stay that way until they are auto turned off due to lack of motion. Then if Hubitat sees motion again, turn them back on to the standard "Basement Lights On".
Would that be the expected results your configuration?
Yes. However for the Google Home adjustment to stick, it would have to use the name you put in the app. Override (getting a new setting to stick) is only recognized from the physical switch or by using that virtual device, the one you name (which you would include as a device for Google Home). You would want to select "Override for level only", so that when motion stops, it will turn the lights off.
I'm a bit confused, would I put in my scene name "S - Downstairs TV Lights" into the Alexa field? What if I had multiple scenes? Can I put in multiple names into that field? (Sorry, I'm not home and can't test this right now).
I have a Hue bulb (via a Hue Hub), is there anyway to for me to set that in the Hue App and have it stick?
I appreciate the help, this is a bit counter-intuitive to me. I would expect the lights to stick unless while there is motion. Or disable the automation entirely, which is sounds like it does. Presumably I changed them for a reason. There must be a use case I'm not considering.
Motion lighting apps respond to motion events to turn lights on to a predetermined level. So this issue becomes stopping the app from doing that under some circumstances. Specifically, you don't want it doing that when you adjust the lights after they are on. With me so far?
The next issue is what adjustments count (stick) as ones that mean to not change the level back when motion is detected again. Physical switch is one. The issue becomes one of distinguishing between those things that are the result of the app turning the lights on in the first place, and those things that are adjustments to the lights after they are on. When the app turns on the lights in the first place, those lights respond with a message that they have been set to level x. That message is indistinguishable from the message that would be sent if you adjusted the lights from the web ui, or from Google Home. So we need a way to make that distinction (physical adjustment being one). The other way is to use the special virtual device that the app creates. The app will know that the adjustment coming from that source means to have that adjustment stick.
You can put whatever name you want in there, but it probably should not be a name you are already using. Instead, it should be a name that makes sense in the context of speaking to Google Home, for instance "TV Lights". "Google, set TV Lights to 40" would change their level to 40 and prevent the app from changing them due to new motion events in the room. Remember, what's going on is that motion goes inactive, then it goes active again all while you are still there, but before the passage of enough time to turn off the lights.
This is not perhaps the most intuitive method of dealing with this issue. I'm going to look into making it more intuitive.
Interesting -- I just need to rethink how I'm handling what I want to do. I think I may be trying to get Motion Lighting to work in a way it was not designed to.
The Alexa name won't work great for me. This is actually a larger problem. In our house we have all sorts of lights (hue lights, z-wave controlling halogens, flood lights, can lights) and telling a room to dim by 40% often doesn't work very well. 40% can mean very different amounts of lights to each device. Even different brands of LED light bulbs behave differently. It would be very cool to allow a way to calibrate the lights to the same level... but I'm not even sure I'd take the time to set it up if there was a way.
Anyways.... That is not what we are talking about. But the point is I've invested a lot of times in scenes to accommodate this.
I think often modes will work well for this. You setup different scenes for different modes. But in this case me watching TV doesn't translate well into a whole house "mode". I'd really like a mode for the room or something.
I think perhaps I need to create a Motion Lighting for each scene and use a virtual switch to say which scene is currently active. Or get more creative with modes. I'll play around with this more tonight. Thanks for the help.
We understand this problem. I don't recommend attempting to push modes to address this.
Yeah, I can see that. I just saw the thread about "Dual Modes". Any ideas on how to handle this gracefully?
My current thought is to create one Motion Lighting for each "room mode". Then virtual switches to control which one of those are active at a time. They will need to act like radio buttons so only one is active at a time. But that might get messy quick too.
So using this override, if just above in the image you posted. I change add the switch for the light I'm controlling. Then if I adjust the "level" of that switch it should stick? This wasn't working the other night. Now that I think I understand this a bit better I'd like to dive into it more.
Here is my Motion Lighting Rule
So am I correct in putting the "Kitchen Lights" switch in the "Switches to turn on lights" and in the "Switches to turn off lights" drop downs? And this is the physical switch being effected by the "Enable override with physical switch" correct? Just making sure I have the setup correct first.
Actually since we are on the topic... I have another one that seems off. Here is the rule:
This is a pretty straightforward setup. Day/Evening have 2 different levels. The only other thing that turns this light on is a rule for mode "night" (sleep time) in which if the house senses motion it turns on a bunch of lights to "light the way" and this one gets turned on to a dim level of 10.
What I've had happen is when I walk into the Upstairs Bathroom (controlled by this rule) when the HE is in either Day (as in the morning) the motion will trigger the light but it will come on at 10% for the first "ON" Then it seems possibly after the 2nd or 3rd motion event, it corrects the light up to the 99 level of day. I don't have good hard data on when that switch happens. There have been at least 3 times I've walked in there in the morning and thought...wow that seems low. Then it would pop up to 99 some time later. The only thing I checked was if the house was really in DAY mode...and it was. So the motion lighting app was turning on the light...just not at the proper level.
No, this is for OTHER switches to activate it. By putting Kitchen Lights in the main selection, it will be turned on/off by motion. By enabling override from physical switch, adjusting the dimmer for Kitchen Lights will cause it to stick. The way you have it setup, it won't turn off once adjusted. If you want it to turn off when there is no motion, also select "override for level only".
Got it, so REMOVE itself from "OTHER" switches and turn on "override for level only" if I ONLY want adjusting the level to STICK. Will do!
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