Potentially a camera based system with people/person detection.
One more upvote for zooz motion sensors. I have their older and newer ones and indoor and outdoor versions. All of them operate consistently and reliably. My Bosch PIRs, however, have been problematic. Just replaced them and will offer them elsewhere in the lounge...
It's an SML004 outdoor sensor connected to a C8 Pro hub.
I have a second identical sensor that I just busted out of the box. I paired it to the Hue hub so I could update the firmware. I'm going to try swapping that with the one I am currently using once it gets its brain together.
(i.e., updated).
It is interesting that the Hubitat driver has low/med-low/med/med-high/high sensitivity settings while the Hue hub has very low/low/med/high/very high. I assume they effectively map to the same things, just with different names.
It sounds like the outdoor Hue Motion sensors are just overly sensitive by design. Yes PIRs are affected by temperature but one thatās designed for outdoor use shouldnāt be that sensitive. I have external PIRs that were originally used as part of my security lighting system (GJD Opal Elite) Those are 12V wired detectors that Iāve connected to Hubitat via other means (alarm system > mqtt > node-red) and the only ānuisanceā activations Iāve ever had is occasionally from cats or foxes. They have adjustable direction, range, pulse count and a fresnel lens that allows selective masking of zones if needed (none of which is particularly high tech). Iāve had them in use for about 18 years now without issue. I wouldnāt use any sensor where itās direction could not be adjusted to alter the coverage.
Hue recently released a new firmware for motion sensors. I believe that one of the fixes was for low sensitivity settings not being applied.
To date, the best outdoor motion sensors I have used are Ubiquiti cameras.
Before that I had descent luck with the Third Reality sensors, but that had a lot to do with placement. I mounted them upside down on the fence facing my house. This did two things: Changed the detection angle so that the local cats rarely set it off. Also, facing the house there aren't any trees waving around in the wind.
The changes cut down false detections from a dozen or more a night to one or two. They do detect birds during the day but this wasn't an issue as I only use them for lighting. They were disabled during daylight hours.
The Unifi Protect cameras are really good at detecting people. This has cut the false triggers to maybe one a week. It is an expensive option but I was already invested in them. When the Unifi integrations became available it was a game changer.
Reolink Elite Wifi Floodlight Camera works well on identifying and tracking people, deer, good size dogs, etc.
Are the lights controllable via HE like a switch or a smartbulb? Or is it completely controlled by motion detection?
Both possible.
Unifi stuff is amazing⦠itās like enterprise level management for your home network.
Installed a U7 router ā¦switch ā¦and an access point just a little while back. Theyāre amazing⦠UniFi cameras are the next step.
The most bang for the buck Iāve ever got as far as Iād say in router equipment
I'm finding similar using my Hikvision cameras. The ability to only cover a specific part of the field of view and filter to 'Human' makes triggers reliable. It's difficult to cover a driveway with only traditional motion detectors when cars may be parked in varying positions, masking the PIR's coverage. I can combine 'Human' filtered motion events from multiple cameras for both alerts and triggering security lighting.
How do you tie those into your Hubitat to get alerts?
How do those tie into your Hubitat?
Old thread but my 2 bits...The samjin motion sensors that were made for Samsung and later Aeotec are sensative and very reliable. They look nice too. Downside is that battery liife is relatively short (about a 1.5 year in high traffic).
I have just one of these Sylvania. I believe certain Iris models were the same, but there were a couple of versions, so I don't think you can go by looks alone. I think CentraLite was the company behind all of them. Anyway, it is still my favorite motion sensor of all time. Never drops and the battery last for several years in high traffic.
CR2 is the bummer about both of them, but I now have rechargeable CR2 (although I'm still on the last of the disposable CR2 so I don't know how much run time I'll get. It will be less, I know that for sure).
If it were me, I would propably just install one Aqara FP2 and be done with it.
I use node-red on a Pi. Thereās a node that monitors the NVR/DVR event stream so I can use the received events to trigger a virtual device in Hubitat.
The Hubitat integration works differently in that it relies on the IP cameras http server. Thatās only any use of the cameras are directly on the LAN and not on the NVR POE ports.
There is a built in Unifi integration. It was added a couple of releases ago. I have also used the Unifi Protect alarm manager to send alerts to my phone.
Here is a Rule Machine rule using the integration:
Isnāt the unifii stuff absolutely amazing⦠I was completely clueless about it until recently. It may be some of the best products on the planet. I was in IT and installed routers on the Internet for a living⦠their home products are certainly enterprise level
I wish I bought their stock early on
Since I have Ring Cameras already, I'm testing out a bit of an ugly cheat.
I created a virtual switch on my Hubitat and surfaced it to Amazon Alexa. I have the switch set to automatically turn off in 10 seconds. When it turns on, it triggers the RM rule I want to run (the rule has logic to prevent it from acting on motion more than once every "n" minutes so it doesn't go to crazy, hopefully).
I created a routine for each of the two relevant cameras and told them to "turn the switch on" when a person is detected.
I'm also going to play with a Zooz ZSE70 motion sensor for grins.
I'd much rather have the alerts directly triggered by a local device--but the device needs to trigger on reasonably sized object--not mosquitos 600 feet away or whatever minor thing seems to trip some of them off. ![]()
Thanks!
They have their issues. Overall though, I agree it is a good product line.
I picked up my first AP in 2017 and went all in with the UDMP in 2020. Since then I have have gone overboard a bit.
My next update will be adding a 10Gbps switch. I need to find a local chapter of Ubiquiti Anonymous. ![]()
I have moved away from Ring. I still have them install for the off site recording as a backup system. They have gotten better at false alarms.
Instead of having the switch flip back at 10 seconds and then using logic in the rule to suppress multiple alerts you could change the 10 seconds to whatever total time you want.
I installed Cisco routers and switches in both Enterprise and Internet backbone deployments since 1992...Unifi has an professional level network management interface that puts ANY home router I've ever used to shame.
Wish I'd bought some of their stock 5 years ago.

