Hello. I am new to smart things and, after some trial and error, got pretty much everything set up. Except one particular scenario.
I have several Zwave light switches controlling my outdoor lights. And a security option, I have a motion sensor in each area of the house. This works great. However, when I want to go on my patio and turn the light on manually, once motion stops, the light goes back off.
Is there a way to prevent the Samsung Lighting SmartApp from turning a light back off if it was turned on manually, and not via the initiation of motion?
Since I use this to aid in security, I really require the smartapp to run locally (and not via cloud) as it currently does (finicky internet where I live…).
Yes, but you will need to use webcore. And that means it will have to run in the cloud. . This is a very sophisticated rules engine created by the community. It allows for stacked conditionals like “if A then B, unless C, but only if D.” And motion sensor lighting combined with manual switches is one of their most popular uses.
Set up is pretty complicated, but there are a lot of community members who will be glad to help. They even have their own forum.
However, there are no locally operated methods for doing this with SmartThings, unfortunately.
If you want to look into webcore, see the following
If you really need to have totally local operation, then your best choice may be just to have the lights come on with the motion sensor, and set up a separate rule that turns them off at a specific time of day in case you forget to turn them off with the switch. But don’t set up a rule to have that particular area turn lights off because of inactivity on the motion sensor. It’s not perfect, but it may be good enough depending on the details.
Thank you for the quick reply! Not exactly the answer I was hoping for… but maybe I could get it to work.
I could utilize the locally driven Samsung SmartLighting only in “asleep/armed” mode and use the cloud driven WebCore during those “unarmed” times.
As far as your second suggestion… that wouldn’t work on my scenario. The dog running around turns the motion sensors on frequently (after sunset). I like the idea of it going back off on its own, except when it was turned on manually.
. This is a very sophisticated rules engine created by the community. It allows for stacked conditionals like “if A then B, unless C, but only if D.” And motion sensor lighting combined with manual switches is one of their most popular uses.