Help with motion sensors and timers

SmartApps & Automations
1

I was hoping the community could help me out on this one…

I am using a motion sensor for my den to turn on zwave switch when I walk in the room. When there is no activity in the room, the lefts are supposed to turn off after 5 minutes! This works perfectly…the downside, I got a LOT of false positives on the no movement as when we watch TV, sometimes we are curled up and the lights will just go off because we didn’t move “enough” in the 5 minutes.

To combat this, I made a virtual switch called TV mode that when clicked changes the mode to TV mode which the smartapp for controlling the switch with the motion sensor is not enabled. This effectively prevents the motion sensor from controlling the switch(lights) while in this mode.

I use my harmony remote to trigger this virtual switch and thus change modes when i turn on the TV. Everything works just as it should. The problem I am having specifically…

If the motion sensor turns on the lights with the timeout being 5 minutes for no movement. THEN I change the mode so that the motion sensor doesn’t control it, the lights will still turn off if the motion sensor is idle for 5 minutes even in the other mode. What I think is happening is that since the initial call to turn the lights on was by the smartapp with the 5 minute timeout, even though I change the mode, it will still carry out the motion part as it was turned on the lights.

If I flip the switch while in the TV mode manually, this wouldn’t occur.

So my question is, is there a way to stop an app that has a timeout and say nevermind the timeout now, I am good. I have no idea if this makes sense to everyone.

If it isn’t clear let me know. I want to do this in many rooms but if I can figure a way around this timeout thing, using motion sensors won’t be that great an idea.

Thanks a lot.

Tony

2

This is odd, because there was a thread a few months ago about exactly this issue, but where someone didn’t like that the lights wouldn’t turn off in the new mode – opposite of your situation. Are you using (a) “Turn off when motion stops”, which is in “Turn on when there is motion”, (b) “Turn off when there is no motions”, which is one level up in Lights & Switches, to © some other app?

I have many lights turned on by motion, and off again after some time. I use the “Turn off when there is no motion” with a mode restriction. If I transition to a restricted mode while the lights are on, they do not turn off.