My husband and I got into a debate on whether we should have motion lighting in rooms we could potentially have guests like the powder room and guest bathroom primarily because those little sensors (or at least the Sonoff) look like tiny cameras haha. 90% of the time it’s just me and him and we use the Guest Bathroom regularly since it’s the closest one to our Office.
We finally settled on disabling motion lighting rules and physically removing the motion sensors whenever we have Guests. What do you all do? Also, totally open to motion sensors that do not look like cameras.
Our guests always comment on how much they like the fully automated lighting in the bathrooms and elsewhere. Yes, our bathroom motion sensors draw comments from guests. We explain what they are and that is the end of the conversation.
I only use EcoLink motion sensors. They are big and to the non-techie could be mistaken as cameras, so I put an easy to see label on the ones in all our bathrooms that say "Smart Home Motion Sensor For Auto Lighting" and we've had no questions or concerns expressed. I use a Casio label maker to make these professional looking labels.
NYCE makes a whole line of zigbee sensors, one of which is a ceiling sensor that I like to use in bathrooms exactly for this reason. It looks vaguely like a really small smoke detector, not really like a camera at all, and there’s no flash of light when it detects motion.
Unfortunately it doesn’t look like they’re easy to find ATM, I just tried a quick Amazon and Google search.
I dont know how anyone with some sense would think a ZSE18 is a camera since the PIR lens looks like a golf ball. If you only want motion this one works great. I think I have only had one person ask if the ZSE11 in the upper bath had a camera in it, it was explained. Everyone else likes the motion lights in the bathrooms. I am not going to take my stuff down for guests.
In small rooms, depending on where your switches are located, I really like Lutron Maestro motion sensor switches. No batteries, no hub required, just work. Amazon.com
Yeah I have something like that in my Garage, that was a week 1 after moving in upgrade, before I even started on home automation. It works so well I have not bothered to make it "smart" yet.
The nice thing about the bathroom lights being run through HE is I can adjust brightness and automations based on Mode. For example one bathroom the light do not auto activate during normal sleep hours, since there is a plug in night light in there which is sufficient enough. Then in the early AM they start low and ramp up over 5 minutes. During the day they just come on at 100%.
This is exactly what I do. I don't turn on the rule when in "Night" mode (activated when we go to sleep... I wonder if there's a way to hook into our Sleep Number bed for this incase we forget to press the button or tell Alexa "Goodnight" ), only during "Day" and "Evening". We have those Eufy plug-in lights that just seems to work extremely well. I haven't gotten fancy with the "early AM". Maybe one day haha. Most of my rules are just Basic Rules atm that I may convert to Rule Machine & Room Lighting as I get fancier with them.
Oh sweet! Ahh maybe I shouldn't link my "Night" mode to arming our alarm. We don't want it turning on automatically based on time just incase one of us is still up and about after that time and tripping the alarm when we open exterior doors. I do still need to work on turning the LED on our Zooz switches to red by the exterior doors whenever the alarm is armed.
I could have sworn the Zooz drivers you created allowed you to change the LED indicator color based on a rule in Rule Machine... or am I making that up?
), only during "Day" and "Evening". We have those Eufy plug-in lights that just seems to work extremely well. I haven't gotten fancy with the "early AM". Maybe one day haha. Most of my rules are just Basic Rules atm that I may convert to Rule Machine & Room Lighting as I get fancier with them.
