I have an oddly shaped main bathroom that has 3 entry points: bedroom, walk-in closet, and deck that all open into the bathroom. Room dimensions: 17’ top to bottom and 11’ to 12’ left to right.
There is a 4-way switch (4WS) that controls a flush mounted light (square light in pic). Scones over the vanity controlled by a dimmer (SD), a chandelier controlled by a dimmer (CD), and exhaust fan and shower lights controlled by a Zooz Zen30 double switch. All the switches will be either Zooz or Enbrighten. I’ve also noted areas where we have a plug.
My goals are to turn the lights on automatically regardless of entry point and for the lights to stay on while showering, soaking in the tub, or using the vanity. I also want to turn the exhaust fan on automatically based on the humidity. I assume I need multiple sensors to achieve this because of the configuration. Below are my thoughts and would love yours as well as Zigbee/Z-Wave device recommendations:
I know I can’t get away from getting an mmWave Presence Sensor that covers the bathtub. I’m thinking of getting the Aqara FP1. I would love reviews on this and other recommendations. Are there models that you can wire directly (like a switch)?
I know I need a humidity sensor for the exhaust fan. I’ve also seen others using it to indicate “I’m showering”. How reliable is this in practice? What is your recommended multisensor (motion & humidity) that I could use in the shower? I’ve seen some casings for sensors to make them “outdoor” safe. Would those work for indoor multi-sensors?
I was thinking of getting a single motion sensor to cover the entry points.
Finally, what is best practice to combining sensors to indicate presence in rules? Virtual devices? Local variables in RM? Easily achieved in ML or RL? In an oversimplification pseudo code, I’d like to:
Trigger: Motion OR Presence Active
On: Bathroom Lights
Wait: Motion AND Presence AND Shower Motion Inactive (may add a delay)
Off: Bathroom Lights
I think you'll definitely need multiple motion sensors, though depending on how you normally keep your doors, it's possible contact sensors could also work for some of those locations. I wouldn't say you need an mmWave sensor for the shower area; a properly positioned PIR sensor (as most are) could also work unless you are dealing with something like floor-to-ceiling glass where that likely won't work.
Some PIR motion sensors also have humidity built-in, including the Zooz ZSE40 (4-in-1) and ZSE11 (Q Sensor), Aeon Multi 6 or 7, Iris v3 (discontinued but maybe still findable on the secondary market), and at least one Nyce Zigbee motion sensor model. You could also get a standalone (or likely temperature/humidity) sensor. I haven't had much luck doing this myself, though I know some people have tried using rules or custom apps. I instead just turn the fan on manually and have a rule to turn it off after a while, but not if there is still motion, and it works well enough for me.
Motion Lighting and Room Lighting can just use multiple sensors directly, so there is no need to do so yourself via other means in most cases. If you do want to, the Zone Motion Controllers app can combine multiple motion sensors into one in various ways.
If your device really reports "presence," that's not usable by ML or RL directly, but you could use a rule and virtual device or a custom app to "convert," or you can wait for the next platform release, where some changes have been announced for the Mirror app, and you'll be able to "map" some custom attributes to others (e.g., presence to a virtual motion device, then use that device in RL or whatever).
I did mine with Simple Automation. I know Rule Machine somewhat now, but never got into the others: motion, lighting, basic.
I think you should use contact sensors on the doors to prevent any motion activation when the doors are shut. Lights and fan will stay on. Can turn off lights and fan and they will stay off.
I know you said you want humidity control of the fan, but it's my opinion that it give people the illusion anyway, that the noises they make in there won't be heard by others, lol.
My setup for the fan is to have an Enbrighten Z-wave switch set up so that on leaving, a door stays open, fan will by default be on for 5 minutes. Two pushes up=10 minutes and three pushes=15 minutes.
Another switch can override motion activations by triple toggling up and down. It's not used that much, because most times the door is closed or the person doesn't stay in there before the light times out, 5 minutes.
It can drive you crazy. It nearly did me. Good luck.
I was thinking more for the bathtub for this. I don’t tend to move when I’m soaking.
Do they create any of those multisensor to be waterproof or at least an aftermarket case to make them so? I was thinking of placing it in the actual shower itself.
For motion sensing I use Zooz ZSE40 4-in-1 sensors. I also use them for humidity sensing.
As you think about placing your motion sensors consider these things:
- Will the doors to the bathroom be closed all the time? If not, anytime someone walks past the door the light will come on.
- Hot water will blind IR motion sensors in shower and bath areas. The sensor depends of temperature differences (which relates to IR radiation from stuff) to identify motion.
- There are a lot of threads on the Aqara FP1 sensors. I don't have any, but they look interesting. Search results for 'fp1' - Hubitat
-Pay attention to the viewing angle of the sensor to make sure it has an opportunity to see the motion. You will need more than one just tocover the doors. You will also need one to cover the remainder of the room.
-ML is the best place to start for using motion sensors to control the lights.
Oh and Zooz has the ZEN35 which seems tailor-made a fan/lighting application.
And, I like the Ecolink Z-wave contact sensors.
I have Enbrighten motion sensors switches-they come in dimmers too, which maybe I should've done. The sensor and light actions can be broken up by @JasonJoel 's fine driver, which did the button control I mentioned earlier as well.
That’s what I’ll be using to control the fan as well. I was going to have it automatically trigger by humidity tho. Not sure if that’s exactly a good idea or not.
You could, but it would be slow to react. Try it and see what happens when the lights go off because the humidity sensor didn't trigger soon enough. lol.
The only door I can think of that will be open is the bedroom one. We may go in and out of the bathroom to get to the deck but I would fully expect that to turn on the lights. The walk-in closet has pretty low traffic. Wouldn’t this just depend on the direction you have the sensors facing, tho?
Do you have an example of this? I do think I’d like an override to the motion sensors using an Alexa command or switch to “relax” while in the tub. Probably going to want them to stay dimmed.
I only do this when the door is open. Otherwise, the door contact sensor turns on a virtual switch that suppresses motion. I had to convert to a switch because that is what Simple Automation requires for restriction.
The triple toggle acts on that same switch. Again, it acts as a button with the driver written by @jasonjoel for the Enbrightens.
This turns on the switch. Again, this whole thing might have been cleaner in motion lighting, or whatever.
My go to strategy for bathroom lights is to keep them on if the door is closed. A contact sensor on the door that is defined in rooms lighting to disable turning off if closed. Then it's a matter of having people leaving the door open when the bathroom is not in use. That way you only need to cover the entrance with motion to trigger lights on. Once the door closes it doesn't matter if you're in the shower or reading a novel while sitting on your thrown, the lights stay on.
I did find that example on the Hubitat YouTube channel and liked it, but it’s exactly the whole “leave the door open” that would be the issue. My husband likes to go close every door he goes through (don’t ask me why). I asked him if he would be willing to leave the doors open and he told me, “I shouldn’t have to change my habits for things to automate.”, so I guess that’s off the plate.
But, then again, he’ll probably just turn the lights off manually anyway so the automation would work just for me lol.
Wouldn’t that be annoying though for multiple entry points like ours? I’m sure he’d still be going in and out to go to the deck while I’m in the shower so the lights would kill every time he opens the doors.
Until there's proximity chipping kits for the family available at Target, I'm just using physical switches and 1 hour windows for bath lighting. It ain't worth the family grief. Just saying. . .
