Randomly Used Bedroom Fan Ideas

Hello,

I have 3 bedrooms that are randomly used and was kicking around ideas on how to initiate a non-motion fan rule at night that comes on and off based on temperature.

Maybe watch for motion between 10pm-5am and if any is detected start the temperature-based fan rule?

And before anyone asks, I don't want motion detection for the bedroom night fans because of little or no movement when sleeping :slight_smile:

Thanks Again
Matt

Just thinking out loud here... maybe have a rule that turns on a virtual switch if there's motion between 10:00 pm and 5:00 am, and then turns the virtual switch off at 5:00 am. Have a second rule that's either triggered by the switch being on and does the temperature stuff, or is triggered by the temperature but exits if the virtual switch is off. Lots of different ways to do it, I would think, depending on what you want to have happen.

I have something kind of similar, except off is also based on motion (it's for my kitchen), even for off, which you don't want. You should be able to adapt it to your needs with a few changes:

image

My Kitchen Fan is exposed as a dimmer via HubConnect, so that "Dim to 15%" thing really just turns the fan on to a low speed. I also have a bit of complexity in here: I have two "timed" switches (virtual switches that turn the fan on for a while then turn it off) and don't want this rule to turn the fan off if those timers are still running (i.e., if the switch is still on), and I don't want the speed to change if it's currently on. (I check for both the timed and "real" switch here because my Hampton Bay Fan Controller device doesn't always seem to update its status, even though the timed switches work, but that's another story.)

In your case, you could probably make changes to adapt it, like:

  • Change the trigger to "active" instead of "changed" and eliminate both the outermost conditional and the ELSE (which would be orphaned anyway if you didn't)
  • Add an action after you turn on (or "dim" in my case) the fan to wait for some other event or condition to turn it off--I'd suggest a specific time of day, but you can be creative
  • Anything else that might fit your needs :slight_smile:

Good luck! Hope this gives you some ideas, and I'd be curious to see if you come up with anything interesting for your own situation.

Thank you I appreciate the ideas :slight_smile:

I think this might work, but I am concerned that it will not restart when the temp rises, once motion stops. Someone enters the room and the temp is >=75, then the temp dips below 75 and when it goes over again the lack of motion from the sleeper won't restart the fans.

IF (Time between 9:00 PM CDT and 7:00 AM CDT(F) AND
Tristen Motion Sensor active(F) [FALSE]) THEN
IF (Temperature of Tristen Motion Sensor(76.05) is >= 75.0(T) [TRUE]) THEN
Dim: Tristen Fan: 100
ELSE-IF (Temperature of Tristen Motion Sensor(76.05) is < 75.0(F) [FALSE]) THEN
Off: Tristen Fan
END-IF
END-IF

What is your trigger? I'm assuming "Tristen Motion Sensor changed" since that seems reasonable to me based on the rest, but that is an important detail because it is what makes your rule actions (the part you provided) run.

As for your actions, what you have now will (assuming my trigger guess is correct) turn the fan on with motion if it's between 9 PM and 7 AM and >= 75°. It will turn the fan off when motion changes to active if it's between 9 PM and 7 AM and the temperature is below 75°. I find it unlikely that this is what you want (off with motion active?), but it's not clear what you do want: off after a specific time of motion inactivity? (That's pretty easy and there are lighting-based rules you could look at and modify to use a fan instead, adding temperature where needed.) Off if the temperature gets too low? (And if so, do you care if motion is active or not?) And do you care if any of this happens when the fan was already on by some other means (e.g,. manually?). The rule can be modified to work in any of these ways, but you have to think like a computer and be precise.

PS - You don't really need that condition in your ELSE-IF since anything that isn't >= 75.0 is < 75.0, i.e., if something isn't caught by that IF, it's going to the ELSE-IF, so you could just use an ELSE. (These are logically equivalent in this particular case, but I'm just trying to save you from more clicking than you need. You would actually need something like this if you wanted a "gap" where nothing happened, which you might: say the temperature repeatedly fluctuates between 74.9 and 75.1...but you still might not need it if temperature is not a trigger).

Since you asked, I played with motion and fans too. I ended up getting rid of the motion aspect [1] and have Pico remotes with 3 options for fans: 1) Fan is thermostatically controlled 2) Fan is On 3) fan is off. Given I have enough Picos double-sided taped to all the walls and nightstands, a control is always in reach and one can simply choose what sort of fan operation one requires (note: a Hubitat dashboard is also set up for each room and this option is nice too). I also have a rule that says that if the on/off fan choices 2) and 3) are not selected within 8 hours, the selection automatically goes back to 1) thermostatically controlled.

A couple of these fans are thermostatically coupled to Ecobee remote temp/sensors via Hubitat Ecobee integration which I like because the battery life is several years and the signal strength (penetration, really) is seemingly stronger than zigbee/Z-wave although no repeaters are possible).

[1] I decided I didn't want rooms getting hot/stale, even if nobody was in there for the time being.

I don't disagree with the manual route, but my goal is complete automation with minimal power waste :slight_smile: You can call it an obsession if you like :slight_smile: