I have a few smart lights on my hallway. I know what I want them to do, but I don’t know which motion sensor to buy. Can you help me out? Here’s what I need:
-Lights to turn on when motion is detected
-When motion is no longer detected, lights turn of after X seconds
Note: the tricky part is, I want the lights to turn off after only a few seconds (5 seconds for example), but I want them to be able to be turned on right after they have been turned off., if motion is detected again. The problem is that I know that motion sensors have cooldown times and this means that this cooldown must be low, or use some trick that I don’t know about.
Is there a way to achieve this? With which sensor(s)?
The light I have are Wiz (wifi) and I have a SmartThings hub (Aeotec, latest version) and I also use Google Home.
Nor do I, I’m afraid. As you are aware, it is typical for a battery powered motion sensor to go ‘blind’ for a period after reporting motion has been detected. If there is still motion at that time it will report a new motion event. A motion sensor may not have the concept of a ‘motion not detected’ event at all, so in the device integrations inactivity is really an absence of reported motion for a chosen period. I’ve always worked with what the motion sensor gives me, I don’t know any tricks either.
The only device I know of that has this degree of customizability is the Fibaro multisensor (the one that looks like an eye). You can definitely set the cool down. Down to just a couple of seconds, but be aware that when you do that, you dramatically reduce the battery life, maybe down to just a couple of months instead of the usual 12.
You didn’t say what country you are in, but it’s available in most regions on the appropriate Z wave frequency. Just make sure the one you ordered is zwave, as they also make a HomeKit version which does not work with smartthings.
In any case, the Fibaro zwave model is the most customizable motion sensor i’ve seen that works with smartthings. They leave it up to the customer to decide what trade off they want between battery life and other features.
Here’s the manual: check the advanced parameters.
And more information from the smartest house. They are a very tecch-savvy retailer and do provide custom code to expose all the features to smartthings.
Thanks! The one you recommended is really customizable. But I understand what you are saying about battery life time.
I would be able to plug the sensor into a wall plug. Is there an option with which I can still get what I want (or similar) but that has the option to be plugged in? The battery life time problem wouldn’t be a problem then.
So, if I bought the aeotec one, what would be the best possible thing I could do with it?
How can I get the lights to:
-Turn on with motion detected
-Stay on while there’s motion on the hallway
-Turn off as soon as possible when there’s is no longer motion on the hallway
-Be able to turn on whenever there’s motion on the hallway again
