Yeah, the shade is on order. That was the first consideration based on where it is located. Also, she's already been working up her list of pimping-out items from pinside. Also have a couple friends locally who have a lot of experience with these machines to draw on when needed...
Sounds like you are off to a great start.
Soon it will be time to make space for another game... Next thing you know, you are planning your game room.
Enjoy the ride!
Years ago I dated a gal who had a pinball machine in her basement. She claimed it hadn’t worked in years. Estimates for someone to come out and look at it were prohibitive,
I had no idea what I was looking at when I assumed the position under the table. Spent about 10 minutes looking at everything and found a wire was disconnected. But from where? Found something that looked right and told my girlfriend to plug it in. The thing came to life, dinging and bonging. All those years for a loose wire.
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Alternate, easy approach: Would an Aqara vibration sensor work for what you have in mind?
The vibration will be intermittent in play, and not happening at all in between games. Depending on OP's needs, detecting the game simply being on might be better.
(Oh hey I just had a fun idea I might have to try... You could add a contact sensor to the tilt mechanism, so when you get a tilt warning the lights in the room flash red, or something like that.)
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Vibration would be possible, I guess (she did add on the shaker motor kit), but as Horseflesh said, there are times when it doesn't vibrate. Power sensing would likely be better.
The idea of a tilt warning throughout the room would be cool, but I'd have to think about how to do that since it's a simple pendulum inside a loop mechanism.
The tilt pendulum is inside a ring, and when they touch it is closing a switch. It should be easy to hook up any kind of contact sensor with screw terminals to the tilt electronics without interfering with the game.
I think the bigger question is, can the Hubitat make something happen on switch closure fast enough so it stays in sync. If you get a tilt warning and see a lighting change a second or two later, the effect would suck.
Anyway -- enjoy the game. If you are in the PNW, LMK and I can refer you to a local collector group, if you guys want to meet the community.
A Zigbee contact sensor should work just fine. If you are seeing delays measured in seconds then something is seriously wrong.
You could use one of these to detect when an indicator light turns on.
I ended going with the TP-Link KP125M (Matter) plugs with power sensing to tell when the machine is on, using Dave Gutheinz's tlLing_plug_em driver. From this, I'm controlling a Cree LS-series 4' LED fixture (that I had laying around) for uplighting using a Zooz ZEN54 0-10V dimmer. Works perfectly, so far.
I have used an Aeotec 7 series sensor (with external screws) for contact sensing in a different application... May have to pick up another to attach to the tilt sensor.
