I moved a few of the simple WebCore pistons over to Simple lighting for efficiency but maybe I am interpreting how it works incorrectly.
I have a rule to turn on a light and turn off in 7 minutes, I have selected "Turn off when Motion stops".
The light turns off after 7 minutes even if someone is in the room and moving. Unfortunaltely that's the wife showering etc in the ensuite. 
In WebCore any motion would reset the timer and the light would stay on, that's how I thought this rule should work.
Can you show a screenshot of your Simple Automation Rules setup? What you describe is how it should work, so either there's a mistake in that setup or the sensor isn't actually detecting motion (not likely if it worked in webCoRE but quite likely if the sensor doesn't have the shower within its view, a problem lots of people have in bathrooms).
It's a pretty basic rule. The WebCore funtionality has been in use for 5 years. Sensor is an ST V1 with new batteries and has always been in the same location; these things are rock solid.
While my wife was in the dark and not in the shower I waved my hand in front of the sensor and the light didn't come back on. Maybe this is a case of delete and re-rule 
You mean the Kickstarter model with the USB port and AA batteries? Aside from their size that looks gigantic by modern standards, I love those things. 
(But I have yet to see anyone else with one...)
Anyway, for the app, that looks fine. The only thing you don't need to configure but did is the "Turn on after this number of minutes" setting. I'd try removing that value to see if it helps; anything without an asterisk is optional unless otherwise indicated, and I'm wondering if maybe it's doing more work than it needs to if this value is specified and causing problems elsewhere, even though the specified value of 0 should do to the same as it just not being specified at all...
If that doesn't help, you could also enable logging and and possibly app events so you can see what this app is doing. It's possible another app/rule is also using the device and causing the behavior (check the "In use by" section on the device page), so these could help you figure out if it's really this app--though not necessarily why unless those give you any clues.
I tried to clear the Turn on "0" but it always repopulates with 0 when you leave the field.
Doesn't get used by any code to turn off exept a physical switch in a piston.
As ususal these things are elusive, my wife just had a shower and the light stayed on the whole time.
Oh well, at least it's out of any ST mumbo-jumbo now
Hmm. You could try re-creating the app to see if that helps. Otherwise keeping your piston would work too, even if this should too! But yeah, good to get it off of ST either way, I think.
Another approach would be to use a Motion Lighting App (from what is now called Motion and Mode Lighting Apps). If you ever want to do more (contact sensor on a door to inhibit turn off, etc.), Motion Lighting is more configurable, and it’s optimized to handle motion sensors.
It may just be that the shower is out of the range of view, or that you need an additional ceiling-mounted motion and humidity sensor (Nyce makes a good one, if you can find them) over the shower. From the Motion lighting documentation:
Additional Motion Sensors to keep on
Selecting motion sensors in this section will not trigger the lights to turn On, but if the lights have been triggered by the primary selected sensor, they will stay On as long as this sensor is active. (Example: You can put a sensor in the shower that will not trigger the bathroom lights to turn On, but will ensure they will remain On as long as someone is in the shower).
The motion placement has been fine for 6 years under WebCore.
I did look at the suggested app and will try that if the Simple one keeps acting inconsistent.
It's just a bit overkill for lights on, lights off
This doesn't apply to you, since your motion detector worked in the past, but when my wife gave me some feedback about showering in the dark, I realized that the motion detector doesn't seem to work through glass. My solution was to put a contact sensor on the door and it puts a restriction on the app so that the lights won't go off even if she's in the tub (as long as the door is closed, lol). When the door is opened, the lights go out and the fan runs for five minutes.
I think above advice is good. There's no reason this shouldn't work. Are you running the latest software and C7?
Yup, motion sensors don't do glass. They are infrared (PIR) and glass blocks/absorbs that spectrum.
I have a C7 on the latest build. I'll play with either deleting and recreating or using the Motion and lighting app if it persists. Worked fine this morning.
I always have my old WebCore piston if I scratch my head to much.
Hi all, I am kinda in the same boat here... I've contacted HE support and they told me to try and find help here.... here's my what I sent them:
"Basically, I've been transitioning my stuff from ST and I noticed something different with HE - For instance, I have two lights (LIFX using local control) in my kitchen with a hue motion sensor and here are some of the rules I am using:
- K1 ( kitchen 1) will turn on upon motion detected, then dim to 40% if no motion is detected for 5 minutes, then will turn off after another motionless minute
- K1 (kitchen 2) will turn on upon motion detected, then dim to 40% if no motion is detected for 3 minutes, then will turn off after another motionless minute
This gives us a chance to wave to the sensor as the lights start to dim/turn off if we wish to stay in the kitchen however what's been happening is that I literally sit there and wave to the sensor after, for instance, 'K2' has dimmed to 40% but yet it turns off after another minute then the rules appear to keep executing despite the fact that the motion was detected at which point they should turn back on at 100% level. This same logic used to work flawlessly in ST so I don't quite get why it's not working on HE? Unless you guys set the 'Simple Automation Rules' to execute in a certain order? By the way, the motion sensor is set to check for motion every 10 seconds.
I also notice the same thing occur to my hallway lights however not as often as the kitchen ones - I use the same hardware as above so LIFX lights with a hue motion sensor.
I really don't want to go back to ST as I am loving how much quicker HE is compared to ST so if you could come back to me with a solution it'd be great.
Here is the list of all rules I've set to the kitchen and hallway lights:
"
So the answer is to use the 'Motion and lighting app' is it?
It would really help to see logs of any rule that doesn't work as expected (screenshot, not copy/paste).
You are firing a lot of rules from some very common events, e.g. Kitchen motion inactive. So it would make sense to approach this someway other than firing off 7 rules every time that motion sensor goes inactive. A single RM rule would suffice for each of your groups fired by the same event, or look into Motion Lighting as a more consolidated way to do this. Perhaps use modes tied to your time frames, and then dimmer-per-mode functionality of Motion Lighting or RM.
There are differences between the cloud that has unlimited resources, and a dedicated local hub that has finite resources.
2 Likes
Slightly off topic but is there a recommended maximum number of rules/devices?
Thanx, Abe
No. We have hubs running hundreds of devices and hundreds of rules. There isn't a quantity limitation; there is a how much do you try to do at one time limitation -- it is possible to overwhelm the hub. For example, a run-away LAN device can spam the hub to death.
1 Like
I second Bruce's recommendation to use Motion Lighting. You can very easily set these lights to do this without the 12 or so rules you have just for your kitchen light. If that does not work for you, then I would look at the community based Lights On Motion Plus app which has different options than the built-in ML app.
I would also suggest setting up modes if you have not done so, it appears that you probably could consolidate many of these time periods into a mode. What that does is you can simply select "day mode" (or whatever) for each lighting instance instead of repeatedly selecting these times every time you want to make a new automation.
1 Like
Thanks heaps for the info guys, I appreciate that.
I am a bit busy with work at the moment but I'll come back to you around early next week.
Cheers.
hi mate, I managed to find time today to have a bit of a play around with the ML app but I couldn't find the option to dim per mode? All I get is the dimmer level option, see screen shot.
I even jumped on YouTube and tried following the step-by-step tutorial ( it is 3 year old though) as the guy demonstrates exactly what I want to achieve but again I couldn't find the right option.
I then went on to install the 'Mode Manager app' thinking that the 'dim per mode' option would somehow get enabled on the ML app but it didn't happen.
I feel like I want to give the ML a crack first before trying the RM as I had a quick look at it and sort of struggled a bit with putting the logic together.
I might try the community based ML app you suggested.... unless you can tell me where I can find the dim-per-mode option on the stock ML one...
thanks in advance...
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
