I’ve been looking for a way to create a motion based system that activates various devices like light switches and appliances by detecting movement in the appropriate room. However, after trying a couple motion sensor options, they all have one flaw that hurts my goal: They detect when motion starts, but don’t continue to monitor motion or notify when motion is no longer detected. My goal is to use the motion detected function to turn everything on, but since some of the devices are lights, I don’t want to just put them on a timer and shut them off if someone is still in the room, so I need a way to continuously check for movement to figure out when everyone has left the room, then set a short timer to turn things off a minute or so after they leave.
Admittedly, I haven’t used anything from the SmartThings family, but I’ve tried things like WeMo and D-Link and found that they were only effective for turning things on, and took so long before looking for motion again that trying to create an effective timer to turn things off shortly after everyone leaves was impossible. I’d like to know if there’s a good device (preferably not AC power dependant, since I’d want the sensors in areas where there’s no outlets) in the SmartThings family, or elsewhere, that can do this. I’m not looking to make a custom solution at this time.