I have plenty of space and I typically back up too far. I thought this would be good to have an indicator light up quick once the vehicle was clear of the threshold. I like your suggestion and need to think about it a bit more. If the garage door is open it also would be nice to not have it on when Iām walking in and out of the garage. The over thought can definitely make it complex.
Let me test the suggested above and will report back.
Alright, the first part of this worked, but the return to green when the beam is cleared does not turn the light back to green.
@deserthillsdrive It should work the same. Turn on logging, try again and post the results and your current rule.
If I understand correctly how you want it to work, the garage door open condition should be in a required condition, not a trigger.
Required condition: garage door is open
Trigger: beam sensor changes
Action:
if beam is blocked, set light red
Else
Set light green
End if
I would create a second rule to turn the light on and off based on the garage door being open or closed.
So if the door is closed, changes to the beam sensor do nothing. When the door opens, the light turns on. Changes to the beam sensor trigger the rule and turn the light red or green. When the door closes, the other rule turns the light off.
I implemented @neonturboās solution and at first was using Rule Machine to manage the indicator light but ran into issues sometimes where multiple execution of rules were stepping on each other especially as I was walking in and out of the garage unloading the back of my car. I ended up creating a custom app to manage instead and itās worked great.
My app turns on and off the indicator light and beam sensor based on the state of the garage door being open or closed. The indicator light will remain on for X minutes, defined in the app, and not stay on indefinitely if garage is left open. Though once the beam is broken it immediately turns back on. Happy to share if interested.
Hi, interesting approach. Initially this was installed to alert me if anyone walks into the shop if Iām out back or inside the house for a few minutes. It has a pushover set up that gives me an alert and day and time. It WAS tied to a chime but that got old very fast with activity in and out of the garage from visitors chatting at the garage threshold.
I like the idea of turning it off and on as well and am interested in understanding more. When you say app, was it added as a user app?
Thank you
That doesnāt seem so complicated which is good. Let me see what I can do with this when I get home to have a foundation and grow from there. I will report back.
Help me understand what's not working here.
15:15:56 Testing Contact open, IR Shop beam closed so Parking Lamp Green
15:16:03 IR Shop beam closed, Parking Lamp Red
15:16:04 IR Shop beam open, Parking Lamp Green
15:16:42 Testing Contact open, Parking Lamp off
Per the logic and 4 trigger events, the rule functioned as it should have. What were you expecting to happen different?
Edit: The door was opened for 46 minutes and perhaps you cycled the IR Shop beam more than twice. If that's the case, check the Events on the device page and see how many are shown between 15:15:56 and 15:16:42.
This is a custom written app in Groovy that you load into your hub.
You can see pictures of my setup here. I am using a Zooz Zen17 to control my garage door as well as the contact sensor for the beam sensor. When the garage door opens, I turn on the beam sensor and when it is closed, it turns it off. In the Zen17 setup I am using "motion" instead of contact because I have yet another automation that manages my overhead lights and will turn them on if motion is detected when the LUX of my outdoor sensor is below a certain threshold - no point in turning on the lights if it is light in there.
The return to green from red does not actually work on the bulb. The original green to red works, but not once the beam clears.
@deserthillsdrive If you look at the logs there appears to be a "green from red" event at 15:16:04. Per the logs, the Green action occurred at 15:16:04.504. Are you saying that the bulb didn't respond? Is there a corresponding event in the Parking Lamp event logs?
Alright,
Youāre not wrong, but the light is not changing every time. I finally was able to have it turn green when open, red when blocked, and green again, but there was a delay or it wouldnāt work at all.
Then I tried again and it wouldnāt go back green.
Logs for the rule:
Logs for lamp: it looks like something is wrong here. Iām using a Sengled color changing bulb. When I get his to work, Iām changing it to an RGB led strip/diffuser.
And the current state rule:
I'm concerned that your Infrared Shop bean contact events aren't being seen consistently by the hub, possibly because of a mesh issues. Is this a Zigbee or Z-wave device? Do you have any repeaters between this device and your hub?
Here is my suggestion to check this device. Open the IR Shop beam device page on your phone. This is a dynamic page and will show the current state of the device. You''ll see it change real-time between open and closed. Hit the configure button and give it a minute or two to configure your device. Open the garage door and exercise the device. Report back if you're seeing the device page update the contact state correctly as you block and unblock the beam.
Once you're confident the IR Shop beam contact is reporting reliably you can do the same with the Parking Lamp.
The beam is also hooked up to a notification through Pushover and has been alerting every time it is blocked. This has been installed for two years. It is a zwave Ecolink contact sensor using the external input two wire connection.
Last night I changed the wire configuration thinking I could reverse the open/close status for easier understanding, but it did not change the contact status. When the beam is reflecting on the reflector, it is reporting open. When it is blocked, it reports closed. I did update the rule to āclosedā. Thatās when it seemed to work intermittent.
Also, when I block the beam for a short moment the system notifies me and sometimes the light changes. When I block the beam for a longer period of time, the light seems to be more consistent, which I find odd because without failure it always notifies.
It sounds as though you're confident the IR Shop beam contact is working reliably based upon the Pushover notifications. I would then move to the Parking Lamp. Can you command it from the device page and how quickly does it respond?
If that works well then I'd try to create a test rule that mimics the original rule but simplified to the IR Shop beam and Parking Lamp only.
When I use the command page and the sharptools dashboard it is Instant. Iām not sure the delay in the rule but will simplify and circle back.
Unfortunately the light turns on outside of the conditions when the beam is tripped. Iām this case the test contact remains closed, if the beam is tripped the light turns red and should not come on. I am still trying to iron out this rule.
Would you post the latest copy of your rule and any logs that show this behavior?
Sorry for the delay. I travel for work and haven't been available to mess with this. I have this rule working, but I can't seem to get it to turn red with the LED strip I use. The test contact represents the garage door, the LED turns green, but when the infrared sensor is blocked, the light turns yellowish color. In device settings, I can get the strip to turn red, but it will not turn red in a simple rule or this Rule machine rule. The only thing I can see happening is the HUE is changing and shouldn't be during the color shift. I have tried different drivers. This is a Zigbee RGBW 12V LED strip with a Zigbee RGBW GLEDOPTO device hooked up.
EDIT: I ended up doing a custom color entry for RED #ff0000 and it works. This rule now works as needed. Thank you for all the help.
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