Motion + illuminance?

Any suggestions for a motion+illuminance sensor that actually works?

I currently have 2x aeon multisensor 6s and they’re going in the garbage. I have HAD IT with aeotec. Their stuff is simply unreliable AF. The multisensor 6’s seem to detect motion when they feel like it and not when they dont. The open/close sensors don’t report open/close reliably either. I’d throw them away tomorrow too, but first I have to figure out how to plug the GIANT HOLES I drilled in my door jams to fit them.

I’m willing to eat the $300 I’ve spent on their junk products and replace them as long as I never have to deal with Aeotec crap again. Die in a fire losers. There’s nothing worse than ripoff engineering that looks cool and makes all kinds of promises, then doesn’t work. Just like Apple.

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I am using Hue motions in two rooms paired directly and a Monoprice in my garage for motion and luminance. I think the Hues do the best and they are small. One of the hues is in my stairwell to turn on a light at the bottom when it’s dark. So this one gets used a lot without issues for months.

The Hue motion sensor works for me. I am thinking to try with the Xiaomi one https://www.gearbest.com/alarm-systems/pp_659226.html?wid=1433363 .

Repeaters and repair the mesh network could help.

the 3 old Aeon multisensors (maybe Gen2?) seem to read motion ok for the last 3 years but lux reads pretty low all the time. Also kind of huge-ugly. Never had false motion (I think I traced ALL possible issues to cloud ghost events).

The Monoprice Zwave open/close have been 100% in the last 2 years.

The old ST gen1/Centralite/Peq motion sensors that take CR123 batteries, have been 100% for 3 years (except for cloud ghost events which cannot be held against them).

How is your z-wave mesh?

oh you don’t need the hue bridge eh? very cool!

I wish I had one of these in every room. Right now I have either Iris, Sylvania, or NYCE motion throughout the house. They all work well, but it would be easier if they had illuminance too.

I live in the Pacific NW and we often have days that are dark enough to require lighting, so simply setting a schedule doesn’t work. The way I’m using the Aeotec’s is that they’re outside and capture the illuminance on the east and west side’s of the house, then I have some logic in WebCoRE that decides when to turn on default lights based on outside illuminance. I’d like to use the motion capabilities as well, but as I said in my previous rant, they’re too unreliable.

It seems like setting light levels based on illuminance on a room by room basis with the hue might be a cleaner solution. Then again, having the lights on would effect your illuminance levels themselves… so hmm… maybe that wouldn’t work. How would you know when to turn the lights off when it gets sunny if the lights themselves are effecting the reading? Kind of a weird observer effect no?

No bridge with that custom driver…well I know the motions I use for illuminace don’t turn on the lights during the day unless it cloudy I have rules set to turn off after 10 minutes so then the lux level returns to a low enough level that motion triggers and turns on the light again.

I have to add I also have a rule that turns on lights at sundown and one of my sensors is tied to that reading lux level. If it starts getting darker before sunset the house lights are turned before actual sunset.

Just a note about the Xiaomi Aqara Motion/Lux sensor.
It only reports the Lux value when it detects motion. If there is no motion for 8 hours, there will be no Lux report for 8 hrs.
Just thought you should be aware.

Thanks. Good to know. I use a fairly continuous illuminance sample stream to set light levels through out the day, so that wouldn’t work for me.

repaired many times. Not reporting any errors. Dunno. No trouble with other z-wave devices. Only the aeotec stuff. Sometimes a closed door will be reporting open so I’ll go over and open/close it. When I open it the aeotec door sensor’s led is stuck on.

It’s been sitting there for hours sucking battery to light the led? Thanks aoetec.

As for the motion sensors. Sometimes I’ll walk up and wave my arms around until they see me. Sometimes they do sometimes they don’t.

One thing I just noticed is that the PIR reset time was set to 4m. Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve set it to 45 sec. Maybe they’ll work a little bit now.