I bought a Multipurpose sensor v5, created a rule to check the y-axis value and power cycle a plug if the y-axis value stays the same for x amount of time. This worked perfectly while testing it at my desk but when I attached the sensor to the thing in question (an automatic cat litterbox), the motion of said litterbox isn't enough to wake up the sensor from its inactive state.
Is there any way to force the sensor to become active and take a reading? If not, can anyone recommend a tilt sensor that will fit my needs?
You might want to check the following settings and set garage door to true and Three Axis reporting to true. I'm not 100% certain that will fix it, but it might.
Devices like this are typically "sleepy" and require some action on the sensor side to wake. A refresh command typically wouldn't be heard since it wouldn't be listening.
I was afraid this would be the case. I was hoping to poll a sensor every so often and create two rules, one of which I referenced in the original post. The second rule would check the y-axis value and if it stayed stuck at >0 for more than 5 minutes, reboot a plug, wait a few minutes, then repeat until the y-axis returned to zero.
Are there any sensors that will let me accomplish this? The litterbox moves quite slowly which is where I'm having trouble with the Samsung sensor.
I haven't looked at the Multisensor, but the minimum reporting threshold for the X/Y/Z axes might be configurable. I wonder if the default is just too high for your application. If the motion was enough to generate a report, you could certainly write a rule that would do what you're looking for.
You could also get creative with a microswitch, some wire and a contact sensor
I looked at the configuration for the sensor and couldn't find anything about reporting thresholds. I also found a topic on the forum from someone looking to adjust the sensitivity of the sensor with no solution so I guess that's a dead end.
I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty and do some soldering - tell me more and point me to some resources on this microswitch/wire/contact sensor please!
Youāre bypassing or replacing the reed switch with another of your choosing. Iām not sure what the automatic cat box youāre using is like, but if thereās not enough room to actually shoehorn in the contact sensor and magnet, a micro switch like this could be used to detect position:
I was looking at the catbox to see where I could fit a micro switch when I realized I was over-complicating things. I was so caught up with the idea of using the y-axis value that I overlooked a much simpler way to do things. There's a small ledge to mount the magnet and a simple open/close condition should be enough to do what I need.
That micro switch hack is really cool though, I'll have to keep that in my back pocket for possible future use.
Thank you guys for taking the time to reply though - I learned some things and am having a lot of fun with the Hubitat
