So we have a cat that likes to sneak in behind us and hide in the closet (our closet is a huge walk-in that we regularly use as a changing room). The other day we accidentally locked the cat in the closet for 2 hours and it dug a nice hole in the carpet.
I picked up a motion sensor and a door sensor and added a simple automation to send a notification if the door is closed and there’s motion in the closet. (I even added a smart bulb in a lamp that would turn on, too just for kicks).
The issue I have is that every time we close the door, the automation triggers because obviously we had just triggered the motion sensor that’s by the door and then we close it, so the trigger happens.
Is there anyway to write an automation that essentially holds for four minutes after the door closes? (Since it takes four minutes for the motion sensor to go from “Motion Detected” to “No Motion Detected”).
I have nothing serious to add to this discussion other than I feel your pain. Our cat would sneak in everywhere it could like yours. When people ask why I have sensors on every door and closet, I show them a picture of our cat…
It was so bad at one point that we just left everything open and had ST alert us if something was closed when we left. Eventually she realized that staying closed up in a tiny closet away from food and her box was not fun. I guess negative reinforcement worked in this case?
Thought about that, we have a cat door in our bedroom. The issue is that we don’t want the cat in there at all. The doors we have, you can lock to make them one way only, but then the cats bat up against them to get in. (Stupid animals only want to be where they can’t) I’m afraid that if I put the door there as exit only the cat will spend all night banging on it to get in.
For anyone interested, it works perfectly. The motion sensor is able to pick up the cat in the dark. She spends 4 minutes looking around the closet, then our phones go off, the lamp turns on and the lights under the kitchen cabinet turn red.
I set up a second automation so that when the closet door opens, the lamp turns off and the cabinet lights go back to white.
Interesting, I had no idea there was a limit, but I read up on it after seeing your post. The good news for me is that it looks like I can create scenes to lump in several actions, so I’ll play with that later. Thanks for the heads up.