Garage Lights with Motion and Door Contacts

I would like SmartThings to turn on the garage lights when any garage door or pedestrian door opens or remains open, or when motion exists within the garage over the last 15 minutes.

The trouble is that the motion sensors will always turn off the lights after 15 minutes whether or not one or more of the garage doors remain open.

Is there an easy way around this?

John

What are you currently using? Smart Lighting?

You can use Rule Machine to do what you want and control the triggers and conditions of the lights being on.

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I am using Smart Lighting.

I attempted to install Rule Machine and Rule using the instructions provided. I’m not a programmer, so much of what I’m doing is foreign. However, I was able to “publish” both apps – they both have a status of “Published”, but I don’t see them on my Android yet. Did I miss something?

Once they are published, open up your app and go to the Marketplace.

Click on SmartApps at the top, and scroll to the bottom where it says My Apps

Rule Machine will be in there.

Once you select it, make sure to open it and click Done in the top right immediately.
Then you can go back in and set up the rules.

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Thank you! I’ll try it!

Awesome! It worked! Thank you.

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Did you get your rule to work? I have mine after up exactly how you said.

If you want, I can send you screen shots of how I have mine configured.

Hi Jason,

I think I’ve set up my rules correctly, but I haven’t spent any time in the garage yet to see if it works. I know that I’ll need to work on delays to ensure that if I stay still in the garage for a few minutes the lights won’t turn off, and that’s where I think I might run into an issue. Also, to save power, I have the Smart light switch at the door, too, so I will normally turn off the lights manually when I exit the garage before the motion delay times out.

I’m interested to see what you’ve done! Please post screen shots when you have time. Thank you!