Hello all, I'm struggling with ideas to implement smart lighting in my kitchen and living room. What I currently have is this:
Living Room: 2 lamps that turn on with motion with an Aqara P1 Motion Sensor
Kitchen: Have WLED WiFi lights that turn on with an Aqara P1 Motion Sensor
The kitchen and living room work just fine. The only issue I have is when people stay in the kitchen or living room for much longer, there are times where motion is not detected and they have to move around to get the motion back to activated.
Garage: Have a Aqara P1 Motion Sensor but that does not work very well, so I just switch it to turning on/off manually
Is using Presence Sensors the way to go for my issue? I'm looking into getting Linptech Zigbee Presence Sensor ES1. Since you will need to connect to an electrical outlet, isn't it an eyesore?
You are right to start and consider mmWave sensors in some of those situations, at least in theory.
PIR sensors, which I expect is what you are using, work best at detecting movement across their field of view, as opposed to movement coming towards them, for example. The best results can sometimes come when placing them facing across a doorway to trigger lights to come on when entering a room.
This is not to say that PIR sensors can't detect people moving around in front of them more generally, or even moving towards them. If you are moving around the kitchen preparing dinner, a sensor pointed in the general direction of where you are will typically pick up movement quite happily. It is when you get situations where people are perhaps sitting down eating a meal or watching TV and not moving very much that mmWave sensors are looking to provide a solution.
I won't pretend to know how they work, but they can have their issues for some people or situations or environments. Some people can have great success with a particular mmWave sensor, while others no end of issues, e.g. ghosts. My suggestion is to try them out, but start small and test them in a few different situations to see what works best for you, before purchasing too many sensors (like me ).
In terms of what I would suggest, at least with your current setup...:
Use multiple PIR sensors in some rooms, to provide coverage across the room, and use the Zone Motion built-in App to use them like one big sensor
Play around with timeouts on deactivation of motion detection, this can be done (often) in both the device and in the Zone, plus in rules you have configured you can often setup delays before the lights turn off after motion is inactive. Extending the timeouts in different parts of the setup can allow you to keep the lights on more consistently when motion is not being detected
Always have a manual override option for your motion lighting. I have a Hue system and use Hue dimmers and Tap Dial remotes to manually turn the lights on, which de-activates my motion lighting. Once I manually turn the lights off, the motion lighting is re-activated.
I've probably written enough... Hope that helps in some way.
I'd also suggest, where it makes sense, to use contact sensors. This can make for an even nicer experience, having the lights on just a fraction of a second earlier than having to wait until you physically enter a room. Also good in the garage.
Thanks for the info. I have heard good this from presence sensors being using in kitchen and living rooms. The only issue for in my kitchen is where to plug them in. I cannot perch them high above my kitchen like I do with my Aqara motion sensors so that won't work. Wondering if this is the ideal location to put the presence sensors?
As for the garage, I have heard contact sensors work great when opening the door the door to turn on the lights and once you open them the 2nd time they close? I don't have contact sensors and never used them especially the presence sensors.
I for sure need to test how the presence sensors work. I read the reviews that the Linptech sensor is extremely sensitive where it turn on magically (probably ghosts) spontaneously. Wondering if others have experienced this issue?
I use Philips Hue Indoor Motion Sensors around my home. They are battery powered and the 2xAAA batteries last for years. I've also switched to using rechargeable batteries in them now and still get great life out of them.
So in terms of position I can just sit mine on a side-table, magnetically mount one on the side of the fridge and others I have sitting on the floor under furniture or at the top of the stairs. But yes, if you are looking to get sensors powered by mains power, that could be tricky. I have a wooden cable management box sitting on my Kitchen bench under a power point with a power board inside the box. I can plug in an Aqara FP2 there, along with my Harmony Remote charging dock, a cable to charge my phone, a Google Nest display sitting on top and a rpi zero sitting on top as well. So you could look at something like that....
Be careful not to get too "cute" with the logic you use. Many people, including me, fall into the trap of assuming that all use of a room or space always follows the same pattern, but that is almost never the case. I'll write another novel if I try and describe the scenarios... needless to say, I primarily use the contact sensor opening as a trigger to turn the lights on, but leave it at that when it comes to the lighting. You could also leave the lights on which the contact sensor was open, that would probably be ok for most people.
Other benefits from having the contact sensors aside from lighting can be to provide warnings about doors or windows being left open, say when you leave the house or are about to go to bed.
I echo @sburke781's wisdom here. To his point, I have struggled for many years constantly adjusting my motion, contact and presence sensors. My experience with presence has been laughable and I have abandon presence all together. YMMV. None of my automations are perfect. Lights still stay on longer than I desire. But I error on that side, so as not to be left in the dark. I prefer a clean look throughout my home. So popping sensors/devices all over my house that are visible just does not sit well with me or my wife. Coordinating contact and motion sensors with lighting and other environmental applications is a ballet that is never perfect and requires nearly constant rehearsal.
Another option that you have would be to turn on the light with a door opening, and then leaving it on until there is no more motion detected in the room (from a mmWave or PIR sensor) for a certain period of time (ex.: 2 minutes).
I do this in some rooms of the house. The garage is an excellent candidate for this.
For the kitchen, I have been using a Aqara FP2 sensor, but using that sensor adds a level of complexity since it needs to connect through Apple HomeKit - so likely not a recommended project to begin with!
And on the topic of mmWave sensor, they can work very well half way on the wall - most can see through objects, so don’t need to be high up.
Garage: 1 contact sensor on the door to the basement; 1 PIR motion sensor (Hue) inside the garage.
Shop lights turn on when either sensor becomes active. Turns off when both sensors are inactive for 10 minutes.
I have a separate set of lights that I use for really bright coverage. Those are turned on manually and have a 30-minute motion timeout, I believe. You don't want to be crouched down working on something when the garage suddenly goes dark.
Kitchen and Living Room get more complicated, and it is unique to our layout and uses.
I have one Bosch PIR + microwave motion sensor (pet immune) that covers most of the living room and kitchen. A second (Third Reality) PIR is positioned for better kitchen coverage - an area eclipsed by cabinets and near entry from the hall or basement stairs.
A power-sensing outlet is applied to the TV to handle the case of no motion due to binge watching. We have a Samsung smart TV but it doesn't seem to reliably report its power status.
There are at least 4 different webCoRE pistons that combine these sensors with the Hub Mode and other factors to manage the overall scene. We have been in this house for just shy of 3 years and I would say that it is 99.9% tuned. Every once in a while, I find a new exception or edge case to consider.
I am intrigued by mmWave sensors, but have not found a use case for our home yet.
Thanks for all the replies everyone. Like @Pantheon said, I've automated as much as I can in my house but is it perfect, no. I want to get to that perfection but this is where it's soo hard to accomplish. I'll see on purchasing and testing PIR in my house. My motion sensors work as intended and lights turn on perfectly; however, my only issue is when people are present in the vicinity which is why I am curious on mmWave sensors.
I will need to try the contact sensor and PIR motion sensor in the garage. @Hatallica Do you have the PIR sensor in the middle of the garage to cast a wide net of observability? I have a 2 car garage and my previous sensor is on one end. A situation I ran into is when I'm under my car the lights turn off which sucks!
This was the issue that was solved for me by mmWave sensors. Having someone sitting very still would fool regular motion sensors (Iris v2/v3), but the mmWave sensors do a much better job of sensing presence w/out motion. They are relatively new and not as completely baked as traditional motion sensors, but can be worth some effort to set up.
Look here:
...and here:
The Linptech (and some others, IIRC) has a known issue that affects some users where the device may stop reporting. Solved by some of us via regular device reboots (device is plugged into a smart outlet or smart plug).
The PIR sensor is currently need the middle of the garage, on the wall opposite the door with the contact sensor. The magnetic mount on the Hue indoor sensor allowed me to experiment a bit.
If there is a typical time that you might be fiddling with a vehicle, then it may be advantageous to extend the on-time in that period. For instance, if you tend to be a weekend mechanic, then make the timeout longer on Saturday and Sunday. Otherwise, you have to come up with some clever sensing scheme to handle odd situations.
I have setup with another motion sensor in my kitchen and it's much better now. Was hoping 20 feet with 1 sensor would be sufficient but I needed to buy another sensor which works perfectly. I am looking into 2 Linptech sensors: 1 being in living room and 1 garage.
This kind of situation is why I have manual options in all my rooms, typically a Hue Tap Dial or old-school Hue Dimmer. When I use these to turn on the lights / scene for the room, it also disables motion lighting. Once I turn the lights off manually, the motion lighting is re-enabled.
It can be hard sometimes to think of and cater for all scenarios automatically, or at least I find that to be the case. And, like you say, it can be rather annoying when an automation does something you don't want it to.
I have two of the Linptech MMWave sensors in operation and have another one waiting for me to remodel the second bath and put it into service. Trust me when I say they are super sensitive that is where the "ghost" comes in and they are very useful in the issues you are having in your kitchen.
Some of the issues people have me included at the start is the placement of these sensors. They will actually detect motion/presence behind them through the wall and if the room is small enough they will penetrate through the wall across the room.
So, you have to do a couple things:
(1) Mount them in a location that is forgiving to these type issues. For instance I have one mounted above the door so that it is angled downward preventing the backward reading as I have no one walking around in my ceiling. Lol. The second one is placed at the bottom of an entertainment center angled up. It was mounted on the wall but kept reading my son in his bedroom behind the sensor. Moving to the location at the bottom of the entertainment center directly below where it was mounted solved that issue. So again placement is key.
(2). Back off the motion sensitivity , static sensitivity, and the detection distance settings to the minimum required to achieve what you want. This will take some trial and error.
These two things will make your experience with these sensors much more pleasant and help you achieve what you are looking forward.
Side note my rules use PIR sensors to activate the rules since they are more snappy and I can get their activation at the doorway. I use the Linptech to keep the rule running and then to end it when motion stops with Linptech.
This is something I am in the works of buying! Going to buy 2 Linptech MMwave sensors and place 1 in the living room and 1 in garage. I know the locations of where to place the sensors but like you said, will it sense "ghost" vibrations. Like in my garage, I had a sensor that was built-in to the light and it would go on and off every time even though I was not in my garage. (Either crickets or the wind hitting against my garage door is my suspicion.) This is where I am hoping the mmWave sensor does not have a false-positive.
I should mention in the kitchen. I now have 2 Aqara motion sensors in my kitchen and this works great. Initially, the lights would not turn on but the issue was the 1 sensor was not reaching to the other side of my kitchen. With 2, I'm able to get motion when I'm in the kitchen which works great for me. Not looking to get MMwave sensors for the kitchen since the lights only turn on at night which was my main goal for my elderly parents.
I have never noticed insects triggering the Linptech but things such as fans, blowing curtains, and movements like that will trigger them.
If I was you I wouldn't put them in places to trigger lights I would place them where you want to keep them on with very little movement.
I have tried other zigbee MMwave sensors and honestly the results were not as good. I would assume the MOES version would be just as good. Looks like the same thing just rebranded.
Sounds good to me. Ya, my suspicion of my garage doors banging with the wind fits the "will turn on" no matter what. I will try the living room at least. This is something where my family is watching a movie and the light turn on when we are watching a movie or where a person needs to stand up when no lights turn on. This is something to work with.
That is also part of my solution. I use a double tap on the switches to lock the lights on. Also, during normal operation the more often a light is triggered the longer it will stay on. Now that I think about it, I should add a default reset - maybe four or eight hours in case I forget to turn it off manually.
For example, my office light would turn on and off a lot if I relied on just the motion sensors. Now it stays on all day without the need for a lockout. I think at max delay it will wait about 20 minutes (adjustable) before turning off. If I just walk in and leave it will be on for about two minutes.
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