Question. Light goes out, but goes back on if any movement?

So I have a couple mechanical occupancy sensor/switches left in the house I will be removing for Lutron Caseta.

I have motion sensors in the room, I just haven't added the lutron switches yet..

Is there anyway that once the light goes out due to no movement in the room it will go back on if I move within a 15 second window of time? This is how my mechanical switches work right now.

Sure, but you can do better than that. You can decide how long after motion stops to wait before turning off the lights. And that can be adjusted until it works well for how you actually use the room. In my house, bathrooms and the kitchen need longest times -- 5 minutes is a long time. Many rooms only need 1 minute. This period of time allows the lights to stay on until motion has stopped and potentially restarted over and over, until finally there truly is no one there and the light turns off.

This sort of lighting automation can be done with Simple Lighting (most basic), Rule Machine (complex conditions), and Motion Lighting (complete control over motion and options). These apps are all built-in. Start with Simple Lighting, and go from there when you need greater refinement.

I'm doing that now.

But there is a situation, specifically in my office space where I'm working on my computer. The motion sensor may not pick me up for 15 minutes because i'm not moving, typing, etc.

If the light goes off, I'd like to just wave my hand and have it turn right back on. This happens a lot with the mechanical switches I have now.

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Ah, the way I solve this is with a motion sensor right in front of me, just under the monitor. In Motion Lighting you can have motion sensors that if active will not allow the lights to turn off, but are not used to turn them on. This is useful in this application, as that close up motion sensor may pick up movement from outside the room, depending on how your furniture is arranged.

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I guess I could do that. I have a few spares sitting in a box not being used.

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Yes, this is exactly how it works. I have a few simple motion lighting automations. If I sit still for a while, the lights will turn off. Simply waving or moving slightly will turn them right back on.

I also use Bruce's technique in the bathroom. I have one motion detector that turns on the vanity lights when we walk in the room. I have another motion sensor in the shower. I use the second one to keep the vanity lights on while we are in the shower. I also use the shower motion detector to turn on the shower overhead light and exhaust fan using a second automation. The built-in apps are very flexible and powerful. It's almost as though the Hubitat Team uses these Apps in their own homes! :wink:

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But I don't want them to turn on my lights after that 15 seconds of time. So if I walk into the room, I don't want the lights to turn on. That's where it's different...

May I ask you "Why?"... Eventually you want them to automatically turn back on via motion, correct?

When working in my office, I'm very still so the count down gets to the point where the lights go out.

I guess technically, I could set just my office up this way. Would make it much easier then crafting some crazy rule to do what I want. :slight_smile:

Maybe that's what I do.

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And you want to keep them off? But how would the system know when it is appropriate to turn them back on?

Since you're planning on using Lutron Caseta, you may want to have a Pico remote on your desk that can be used to temporarily disable a lighting automation.

I don't know, that's why I was asking if this can be done.

I was just thinking, I wanted to mimic my mechanical occupancy switches.

But maybe I'm over thinking this, and I just set it up to turn lights on when I walk in, etc.

I do in fact have two motion sensors in here, so I could do that.

That's exactly what I do. I have a motion sensor pointed at my keyboard. Works flawlessly.

The motion sensor usually has some timeout value that you can set, either manually by a switch or setting some parameter through the controller. On first motion, the motion sensor detects the motion, turns on the radio and sends off the motion detected signal. This starts a countdown timer in the device. The radio is turned off but the motion sensor is still looking for movement. as long as movement is still detected, the count down timer is refreshed. You may need to adjust your Rule timeout so that it isn't in conflict with the device countdown timer.

The OP is after what we call in the business absence detection with absence recovery (manual ON auto off that reverts to presence for 15s after it turns off) :slight_smile:. I was planning on doing the same for the day then presence (Auto on auto off) at night but the lux sensors just hold them off in the day and I like presence :smile:. But when I was looking at implementing it on RM 2.5 I found a way with GV so I'm sure it would be even easier with 3.0 just need to rethink the logic :thinking:

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This article seems to explain it. I am still not sure how/why this is better than the normal/typical use of a motion detector. Having to get back up to manually turn on the light if you miss the 10-15 second recovery window seems inconvenient to me. I am sure there is probably a way to accomplish this behavior in Rule Machine, especially with the use of either Private Booleans or Global Variables to essentially help maintain a 'state machine' for this style of lighting automation.

https://www.cpelectronics.co.uk/knowledge-hub/presence-and-absence-detection-explained

How about having 2 motion sensors. One on the door frame inside the office door (A) pointing down. The other inside you desk sitting area (B) where you legs are. When you enter the office it trips (A) and the light turns on. You sit and (B) trips when you move or not if you sit still, no problem. You get up and (B) trips and you walk to the door and (A) trips and after say 5 seconds the light goes out because (A) and (B) are active. Something like that.

Obviously the recovery window would be adjustable, on our products it is mostly set at 30s depending on product. The only reason absence is better than presence is energy savings. It's used all the time in Europe, it doesn't seem to have made it out to other countries though. But all buildings have to have a % of there lights using absence as the quickest way to save energy is to turn the lights on and off manually. The idea with absence is if your forget to turn them off they will turn off after a period of time after the detectors go inactive. Then that caused issue at schools when a teacher would be in the corner of a room "marking work" sleeping :crazy_face: and not moving so the light would turn off and they would have to walk across the room to turn them on so hence absence recovery.

Ha just released you found who I work for :joy:

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Got it! Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense when you're trying to keep the lights off, instead of trying to keep them on. Power savings versus personal comfort.

exactly

the advantage of a switch it usually they will also have DALI lights so it gives them override dimming capabilities as well. Which is also why i have retractive switches at my place. :slight_smile: