I’m working on expanding my home automation, and got some IKEA bulbs and an IKEA motion sensor (2nd gen). I am going to put two motion sensors in our entrance hall/hallway. One right next to a lamp where you enter the apartment, take on/off your shoes and your jacket. The other one will be mounted in a hallway, which is a room you only go through, you never really spend any time there. That’s why the 3 minute delay for the IKEA motion sensor isn’t ideal. So I’m currently looking for other European alternatives.
TL;DR I would like it to be able to measure how dark it is in the room (to only trigger when it’s dark), have a 4+ meter detection range, reasonable battery life and no more than 1 minute of detection delay. Also it should work with SmartThings without any extra hubs. Preferably it should also be possible to adjust the mounting angle and be immune to pets. Anyone who has experience with the SmartThings, Hue, Fibaro motion sensors, or maybe other sensors? Any recommendations?
Fibaro should be an excellent match to your needs, it’s just more expensive. See the following review, although written for the US, it applies equally to the European model.
I’m not sure if you need shorter or longer motion timer, but the Aqara sensors reports motion for approx. 1 min.
If you need longer time you can either use a virtual switch and “power allowance” to control that, or set it in the Smart Lighting app, when setting up which lights you wan’t to control.
Thank you for the reply JDRoberts. I was afraid someone would suggest these. They are about 4.5 times more expensive than the IKEA sensors… What about SmartThings, Hue, Aqara?
The IKEA sensors just don’t cut it, the range is bad (I have to stand right under it), the three minute is also way too long.
Is it normal that there is a delay of more than one to two seconds before the piston turns on my bulbs? Is the cloud communication causing it, or the sensor/bulb?
Hello, thanks, I’ll check it out. I actually need 1 minute or less, less (30 sec) would be even better. Is the timeout fix? Do you have any idea how long the batteries last?
I may be mistaken, but I believe the OP is talking about the length of time that the motion sensor rests after reporting motion and then going inactive again. That is, the amount of time until it is available to trigger again.
For example, in the walking through a room example, you would want the light to come on when you first walk through the room, then you go into the next area, maybe to get something, then you turn around and come back and you want the light to turn on again the second time you enter the room from the other side. If the rest period is too long, The sensor won’t report the activity the second time so the light would not come on.
Some motion sensors have a parameter That lets you change the rest time, but many do not as it is one of the things that can significantly reduce battery life.
That is exactly the reason. So I ended up ordering two Fibaro motion sensors. I just hope it can be configured without a Home Kit or Fibaro hub. If I set the time to like 10 - 30 seconds, I guess it will kill the batteries, but luckily you can buy rechargeable CR123A battieres.
As long as you got the Z wave version, not the HomeKit version, it will work with smartthings and you can configure it with the Z wave Tweaker. ( The HomeKit version does not work with smartthings.)
Most people do not use rechargeable batteries with sensors because the usage curve is very different than a traditional non-rechargeable battery and in particular, the drop off from 50% to dead is very quick. So you may have a hard time knowing when to recharge the battery unless you’re willing to wait for it to die altogether. Also, on motion sensors specifically you will tend to get more false alerts from rechargeable batteries.
This might sound crazy but I’ve seen you post some helpful advice regarding a couple of IOT issues that I am doing some research on. Is there any way I can pick your brain for a few minutes via PM or IM?
btw, happy to pay you for your time in helping me through the above mentioned issue if that matters to you (not implying that it does, just that if that helps I am happy to pay).
Yes, I read the other thread, sorry to hear about your issue. To be clear, I am not looking for a developer to help me implement a solution. I am quite a competent developer myself.
The issue at hand is thinking creatively to come up with a high level design that could solve the 2 issues that I am facing. Once I have a potential solution in mind, I will go ahead and implement it myself (or probably a proof of concept at first at the very least).
If you know of any users on this forum that you think could be helpful in this respect, please send them my way (or toward the thread I made). I would greatly appreciate that.