Light sensors to control solar shades and/or lights

We have several motorized shades nicely integrated with ST. One set is lowered from sunset to sunrise. However, another set needs to be lowered when the intense western sun starts entering the room. This needed to control heat as well as UV damage. We have a lot of solar shades on the west side of the house, all with this need. Lowering them manually is a pain, and if we leave the house earlier in the day, it would be nice not to have to lower them all before leaving, but have ST lower them when required. A time schedule is no good, obviously, since the sun penetration varies by time of year and the weather. Shade manufacturers apparently have such sensors to add to their automation systems (as do awning manufactures). We need such a sensor in the ST lineup.

Hi,

Take a look at the Fibaro Motion Sensor - it’s a motion sensor, temperature and lux sensor in one. Works a treat with my ST set-up. You can then set actions based on the amount of light in the room and/or temperature to trigger the motorised shades.

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I use a AEON multi to control all my lights based on LUX but some people here feel they might be unreliable or have a limited range 0-1000.

Thanks for the replies. The Fibaro unit does have good reviews. Still wondering about the specific use case of lowering shades when bright sun hits the room. It seems most people use the light sensor for low light to trigger turning on lights. I don’t know if the sensor range would work reliably (or can be properly configured in ST) to work for direct sunlight entering a room. Anybody have experience with this?

I’d like to reopen this conversation - I have the same need right now. I am looking for a sensor that will respond to direct sunlight, which I will then use to shut a blind.

The AEON and other sensors show a range of LUX, but I’m looking for something that is more binary: 0 for no direct light, 1 for direct light. Is there such a thing?

I’m sure you could just test shade vs sunlight and the use a rage in a piston. i.e. If < 500 then shade else if > 3000 then sun. Leave a large hysteresis gap to keep it more or less binary.