About a week ago I updated my C8 to latest firmware, and ever since my Basic and Rule Machine rules that depend on motion sensors stopped working. Simple things like "turn on the lights."
Rules that have worked fine for literally years just... quit working.
I've checked, and the devices are reporting motion properly, the batteries are good, etc. And I can see that they WERE properly triggering rules up until about 5 days ago.
I've turned things on and off, reboot with restart with rebuild, etc. So far nothing has worked.
When you look at the Events page for the motion sensor devices, and you see an event that should be a trigger, like motion activation, do you see anything to indicate it is at least trying to trigger an associated rule (app)?
Have you checked the logs page on the hub to see if there are any errors or information that may provide a clue for what is happening? You could try turning on logging in the automations (apps) you have setup to see if they show anything regarding the reasons why things are not working.
It may be worth providing the platform version you were running ~5 days ago, as it may help others look through what has changed in between versions.
Also, what motion sensors and in particular, drivers are you using? This is unlikely to be the issue, but there could be something in the way the driver handles the motion events that is not right... again, highly unlikely for one person to be reporting it if that was the issue.
Once you've tried some of the ideas mentioned so far, it may also pay to post a screenshot of one of your rules, something may stick out and prompt and idea. Again, the fact that you have multiple rules affected, this also has a low chance of providing a solution, but never hurts to include a screenshot.
Have you tried creating a new rule to see if something newly created works, and it is just the existing rules that are affected?
Ok, I figured it out. I reverted to the previous version, restored an earlier database, etc. No dice.
Everything was working. Motion sensors reporting correctly, batteries OK. All of the endpoint devices (locks and lights) on line and working.
I just could not get anything to be controlled according to motion triggers.
Very vexing. I finally noticed that I had set the Activity Timeout on the motion zone to 30 minutes, which I guess was interacting strangely with my Rules, which were set to do things when motion stopped and stayed stopped for a length of time. The net result was that nothing ever triggered.
I'd argue that this is a bug or at least cornfusing, but whatever, If you're using delays in your rules, you should leave the activity timeout in your motion zone short.
PIR motion sensors have a very poor face on detection, walking towards or away is their least sensitive. They are most sensitive when motion crosses their field of view. I'd argue that you have to set the timeout longer when the expected motion is face on, because it's probably not going to detect every motion possibility. Set the timeout lower when the expected motion is across the field of view.
Did not know that, thanks for the new (to me) info. Explains an effect in my bedroom where walking into the room crosses a sensor and the lights pop on. When walking from the sleeping area back up the hall directly towards the motion sensor the lights take longer to turn on than when entering the room. I always assumed it was purely a range issue, but likely also involves the cross vs. direct approach sensitivity differences.
Yeah, I often try to point mine across doorways or across the top of my stairs for this reason. I have some more general one's in my Kitchen and Living Room, but over time I will transition these to using my Aqara FP2's
If PIR's had no segmented lens in front, then they would have just two coverage areas, each quite wide, basically half of the field of view:
To be detected, the object (person, pet, IR source) would have to cross from one to the other. In other words the detection area is a whole room but you'd have to cross from one side totally to the other side.
Motion sensors use a segmented fresnel lens, where the segments are constructed to split their individual field of view to both halves of the PIR sensor. Basically subdividing the room into several dozen pairs of sensor area. You still have to move from one half to the other, but each segment might be just inches across.
More like this:
where each of those colored sections is split across both halves of the PIR. As you can see, the center isn't very highly 'splattered' across the two halves of the PIR, so detection is lower.
Interesting, thanks for the info. In this case, I was testing things by literally turning the motion sensor face up/face down on my desk. This was definitely an interaction between the motion zone timeout and the Rules in question.
So are things working normally for you now, and if so, what did you change?
If things are still not working, were you saying that the 30 minute time-out on the Motion Zone was a long-standing setting or recent change?
RE: "...interacting strangely w/your rules..."
If you want to, you could post a screen shot of your rule using the Motion Zone, and of your Motion Zone settings including the motion zone type you chose, and logs from when the automation ran. Maybe someone here will see something...
