Suggestions for rule to light basement steps

1 week into my Hubitat and I'm starting to get the hang of things thanks to this awesome community.

Got my Simple Lighting rules firing fine, got my man cave lighting with virtual switches and dimmers working, too, with a nice "Enjoy the Movie" from my Google Mini when the lights go off. And thanks to plenty of help, I replaced a RF remote with a Z-wave controller to get a motorized projector lift going up and down when I tell google "Down Periscope." Pretty psyched.

I'm wondering what the best way to manage rules for lighting on stairs to my basement would be. There's the door at the top of the steps that I could use as a trigger, but that doesn't help people coming back upstairs.

I think I'd want to use a door sensor at the top and maybe a motion detector at the bottom? And then set up rules based on whether the light is on or off already? Is that the right approach?

Door opens (to go downstairs): If lights are off, turn them on. If they are already on, do nothing.
Motion sensor (to come upstairs): If lights are off, turn them off. If they are on, do nothing.

The part I'm not sure about is what the rule would look like to turn the stair lights off when you open the basement door to leave the basement. Although I'd probably want/need to tie that into an occupancy sensor so you don't turn off the lights if one person comes up stairs but another stays downstairs.

Am I thinking about this the right way?

It's funny - that is exactly the next automation I was thinking of doing and my configuration sounds nearly the same. I am just going to worry about lighting the stairs - I still haven't thought through all the logic of the lights in the basement. I have a sensor on the door at the top of the stairs and I am planning a Nyce sensor near the bottom pointing up the stairwell. That should trigger on anybody on the stairs regardless of their direction of travel. I will probably use my "standard" motion lighting with a 5 minute pending off. Hoping to do this next week. I just need to convert the switches over to Lutron dimmers (dimmer+Pico) first . . .

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I'm totally selfish, so I don't want the lights to come on full blast when my wife opens the door to yell down. So thats why I'm thinking about some LED strip lighting for the steps.

We have a light bulb at the top and the bottom, but they aren't on dimmers. When we've got the lights off, watching a movie, I don't want that torch firing in my face.

Right now I just want to get the rules right. Change the light that responds is easy later on.

Trying to see how far I can push this automation stuff before my wife loses it.

I like the idea of LED strips. I have been looking at how I could do that as well. For now, I am going to put the stairway light on a Lutron dimmer so it can ramp up. I will control brightness based on modes - I am doing this in a couple of other places and it works well.

FWIW, I have found that the 2018 Samsung motion sensors, work great for both directions of stairwell travel, if placed correctly.

My primary stairwell has a sensor angled roughly 45 degrees down, on the wall opposite the top of the stairs. Basically, it's about 1/3rd of the way up the stair, pointed at the treads, and its wide angle of view catches people at both ends of the stairwell.

The basement stairs have a sensor pointing towards the basement floor (so parallel to the line of the treads), mounted right above the door frame at the top of the stair. Again, the wide viewing angle of the sensor catches movement at both the top and bottom of the stairwell.

These two automations are probably the most appreciated lighting automations in the house!

Both use RM instead of Motion lighting, but that's just because I haven't moved them over yet.

Scott

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