Lights & Motion Sensor in Bathroom?

[sandy]

The bulbs were paired when they were in the original fixtures and sensor was paired next to the hub and then moved.

[Benji]

@RLDreams

I think that is more a sign of how unreliable Wink is when the sensors only report from 3-30 minutes (days) .

I have my EcoLink PIR sensors set permanently into test mode so they are always instantly reporting, even when I had Wink and the lights haven’t been an issue, the only problem with ST at the moment is the bug with the delay even when motion persists.

I feel like the placement of PIR sensors is almost a sport/competition, visually trying to work out the best place that will capture all desired motion but be obscured from undesired motion. I try and visualise the best place for them, of course this can be made really easy with actual cameras and drawing ‘zones’ on the image and I’d go this route but the GF isn’t keen on the idea of there being cameras in the house, let alone the bathroom!

[RLDreams (Really Living the Dream)]

Well mine is in the ceiling with the fan/light it sees everything except the little 5’4" woman behind the 7’ curtain LOL

[sandy]

I have a ST sensor in the living room linked to a cree connected and that one comes on almost instantly.The difference is that that bathroom is virtual switch since i had 2 lights in a single fixture and i was told by ST this provision is not available in the current ST app.

[bravenel (Bruce)]

@sandy

was told by ST this provision is not available in the current ST app.

Yes it is. Whoever told you that was wrong. You can do it with Smart Lighting.

My Crees also come on instantly, much faster than z-wave devices in the same room being turned on at the same instant.

[JDRoberts]

@sandy

The bulbs were paired when they were in the original fixtures and sensor was paired next to the hub and then moved.

Then definitely do a Z wave repair. The sensor maybe trying to send a message through my neighbor doesn’t actually have access to, so it has to wait for that to fail and then try again.

Doing a Z wave repair never hurts anything, it just gets the address tables up to date. Doing a Z wave repair never hurts anything, it just gets the address tables up to date. Some people run one once a month just as maintenance.

[sandy]

Z-Wave network repair finished
Network repair for Bath [02]: Failed to update route
Network repair for Bath [02]: Failed to update mesh info

What does this mean?

[sandy]

Sorry,Bath[02] is the name of my Multi Sensor that is in the bathroom

[JDRoberts]

It probably means there’s a range problem in getting to the device. That could explain a lot. See if the following topic helps any.

FAQ: Is this device a repeater?

you’ve read a little about range and message repeating, and you suspect that the reason why there’s this huge lag in a lightswitch going on in your bedroom, or why you’re having problems with your lock, is because your Devices are out of range. Adding a second hub won’t help under the current architecture. Whether it’s v1 or v2. To extend the mesh, you need more devices capable of “repeating” the specific messages you want repeated. That’s so they can do their little relay thing of passing the message along like a old-fashioned horseback messengers. Ride till your horse gets tired (end of your range) pass the message onto the next guy who then rides as far as he can and so on until the message reaches its destination. which devices don’t repeat Most battery-powered devices do not rep…

[SBDOBRESCU (Bobby)]

I’ve recently put a motion-disarm in my kids bathroom. Thanks to the genius that had that idea, my kids have stopped yelling at me now!

[sandy]

What version are you using to group lights?. I have 2.0.3 build 201311 and I was informed by a support chat representative that its not available in the current version.The work around is create a on/off virtual switch.

I did this and now the virtual switch has stopped responding.Any ideas?

[wipeout944 (Darren)]

An example:

Which lights: bath 1, bath 2, whatever (can select multiples)
What do you want to do: turn on/turn on and set level
How do you want to trigger: motion
Which motion sensor: bath

Etc.

[DITPL (Brad B.)]

@SBDOBRESCU

I’ve recently put a motion-disarm in my kids bathroom. Thanks to the genius that had that idea, my kids have stopped yelling at me now!

What’s motion-disarm?

[DITPL (Brad B.)]

I’m sure that there are similar solutions out there, but I use the app “Dusk to Dawn Light Controller” to turn on multiple bulbs and the response time is pretty good (Zigbee motion sensor and bulbs).

[OBSOLETE] Dusk-to-Dawn Light Control with Lux control and Motion Dimming - RC2

The ‘RC1’ thread has become pretty long and hard to follow I have since made considerable changes/enhancements to the code based on what I have learned and a lot of great feedback from the community. So, I’m starting this new thread to ‘finalize’ the app and track the submission process (part of my goal for this project is to see what the submittal process looks like). The code seems like it is pretty solid now and working well. I have cleaned up the code and added comments for the purposes of documentation. I am not a coder by profession so I’m sure there is still some stuff that is not quite ‘best practices’ and I welcome any and all suggestions along those lines. Also, if any one cares, I’m open to suggestions regarding wording of dialogs, default values, selection list values, etc…

[bravenel (Bruce)]

@DITPL

What’s motion-disarm?

It’s a feature I put in my Motion Lighting app (see here:

Motion Lighting

For those who have the need for lights controlled by motion sensors, who want different brightness for different modes, and want it to work now instead of waiting for ST to debug Smart Lights, “Motion Lighting” performs these functions (and works!).

I also posted the code fragments to disable motion in this thread:

Best logic to automate bedroom lights

It’s straight forward: Allow selection of the disable switch: input("disabled", "capability.switch", title: "Select switch to disable motion", required: false, multiple: false Subscribe to the disable switch in initialize(): subscribe(disabled, "switch", disabledHandler) disabledHandler(evt) does this: state.motionDisabled = evt.value == "on" Then, in all of the methods that handle motion events, simply add this at the beginning of each: if(state.motionDisabled) return And, be sure to initialize state.motionDisabled in initialize(): state.motionDisabled = (disabled) ? disabled.currentSwitch == "on" : false This assumes you are handling all of the motion events in the app.

[johnmoore64 (John Moore)]

My wife banished all technology from the bathroom. LOL
If motion detected, lights came on.
If I detected humidity during morning hours, I’d turn on the coffee, and turn on the fan during any hours.
The problem was reliably detecting occupancy. A motion detector is just a motion detector. If sitting on the toilet on sitting in a bath for too long, lights would go out.
Wife wildly waving arms in the air while on toilet is not a happy wife. All sensors were yanked off the all and handed to me one day. Little did she know that those sensors kept the lights on, until I removed the logic anyway… LOL

Sure I could add one sort of sensor to the toilet and humidity sensor for bath, but seems more complicated than necessary. What I think is missing is a more advanced sensor for reliably detecting occupancy. I haven’t seen an ultrasonic occupancy sensor compatible with SmartThings yet, but that could help this issue.

[SBDOBRESCU (Bobby)]

It depends on your habits. Is the door always open when no one is in the bathroom? Do you ever open the door when she’s moving around? Are there any other switches that are on when someone is in the bath, like a hallway light, a lamp? You may be able to find a way to prevent the lights from turning off, if you add a cheap contact sensor. I solved my bedroom light problem by turning the lights on/off with motion unless another switch os on, in which case I turn the lights off when motion is detected and the door opens. The trick is to place the motion in a way that it only activates if the person is near the door and not when moving around in the room.

[RLDreams (Really Living the Dream)]

@johnmoore64

Sure I could add one sort of sensor to the toilet and humidity sensor for bath, but seems more complicated than necessary.

Moisture sensor in the tub that overrides the motion for lights on ? If tub is wet don’t shut off lights. Of course then the lights would remain on for the 30-60 minutes it takes for the sensor to dry after draining tub.

The long thinking sessions on the throne without moving and the 5’4" wife that the PIR can’t see behind the shower curtain have been the constant conflict for my bathroom automation. I really need to put a dimmer on the overhead lights too. Definitely do not need them at 100% for those 3am trips. Kind of like having a flash grenade going off as you walk in the door.