I am new to home automation and just started with a Hubiatat hub and a few Philis Hue plugs and the Philips Hue multisensor. I learnt that a zigbee device can only be paired with one hub at a time. Connecting the Multisensor first with the Philips Hue Bridge I noticed that the multisensor lights up when motion is detected. I also noticed that when I later paired it with HE, it did seem to work, but didn't light up when motion was detected.
Has anyone of you managed to make the motion detection light work with HE?
I think there is a humidity sensor in the multisensor but I cannot manage to make HE work with it? Anyone managed that?
Thanks for reading and helping me sttart of my new home automation.
no need to pair it with hubitat. just pair it with the hue hub and use the hue hub app to join the hub to hubitat then you see all the devices as local anyway..
i dont think it has a humidity sensor as far as i know just light motion and temp.
mine is at the front door paired with the hue hub.. h ere is my rule to turn on the front door light when it is dark and there is motion.. but not if the light is alrady (manually turned on)
AFAIK the led flashing is only for setup. In use there isn't any visual indication.
Pairing with HE is simply by pressing the setup button and pairing with HE just like any other device (use the Hue motion driver). After that it should just appear as a new motion device. I have had zero issues with both indoor and outdoor motion sensors as well as the switches.
My preference is to pair hue devices (not bulbs) to HE as there will be no delay in triggering rules. There may be a bit of state latency when synchronising between hubs (although TBH I have never tested hue sensors when paired to the Hue hub).
Yes, only motion/temp. What I like about the motion sensors is the ability to change the sentitivity of motion detection from the device parameters.
Do note that Hubitat's stock Bridge integration includes only lights and groups. Sensors are not exposed, nor would this work well if they were due to the fact that Hue's API relies on polling not "pushing."
But if all you want is doable on Hue, that would certainly work.
I would recommend pairing the Outdoor Hue Motion sensor with Hubitat. It works excellent and you then have control over both your Hue lights (via the Hue bridge integration) and anything else you want to use the sensor for (ie. outdoor temp, motion for other uses in the Hubitat hub, and luminance measurements.
Honestly, now that you mentioned, I realized that this is actually extending the battery life, by a lot. I didn't even notice that the red light isn't coming on as it used to, when I had the sensor paired to the Hue Bridge.
The Hue outdoor sensor only has temperature, light and motion sensors, it doesn't have humidity.
Do you mean the light that flashes in the sensor window to indicate it detected motion? This is for setup primarily. It's not something you really need otherwise. It doesn't flash every time the sensor detects motion. Only when it has reset and there has been no motion for a period of time (can't recall how long that is, but for many motion sensors the default is 1 minute).
I wouldn't be too concerned about the battery use though. Mine is on the back deck so it's triggered pretty frequently. I installed it in October of 2019 and the battery is at 88%. That's also after a cold Canadian Winter which usually kills batteries fast.
Thank you all for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience in your respons to my questions. Reading your responses has been truly helpful. What a pleasent first experience of this forum!
Regarding the asumed humidity sensor:
When I paired the multisensor in HE and added it as a motion sensor, I noticed that HE did not give the dashboard icon a heading. Instead it displayed a sort of concatineted row of values (sorry, I am not allowed to share a picture). In that heading I could distinguish "100%" which I assumed was a humidity, albeit not providing a proper value. It then struck me, after having read your eminent replies, that it might a battery indicator. And it is.
Regarding the light in the multisensor:
When I initially paired the sensor with the Philips Hue app and tested the sensor, outdoors in the dark, it did glow faintly with a stedy green light when motion was detected. I thought that was a good thing as the light on its own might deteer a not so determined burgler? But, paired with HE, there is no light on activation of the motion sensor.
Actually the red light flashing during motion is an indication the device didn't receive an ack from the hub for the motion event.
In other words, it's indicitave of a communication issue.
Hi Mike,
I am not sure if your reply was intended as a reply to some of the answers and suggestions above or as a reply to my issue? If it was the latter, my light was a steady green light lighting up on motion detection.
Well spotted Ken. I just happened to have the calibration page in the app open when I tried the motion detection. I guess I just assumed this was normal procedure, not specific to calibration. Thanks Ken, and sorry for the confusion.
It keeps the sensor active so you can see (by watching the light) how sensitive you want it to be. I believe it also suspends signaling the hub while this is taking place. It’s a nice feature and another thing that makes these sensors worth the money.
I connected mine directly with the Hubitat, since it won't pair with my V1 Hues hub. It appears to work fine, comes up as Hues Motion Sensor. Motion and Ambiance report as expected.
What is surprising is....there are no user replaceable batteries in this device ?
The batteries are user replaceable, but not it's exactly super easy... Google for some youtube videos.
Thankfully, the batteries last well (I use energizer lithiums)... I installed my sensor last spring and the batteries are still going strong after a Minnesota winter. The motion detector has always worked flawlessly, even at temps down to -20F.
