Hi,
I’ve googled to no avail. Does anyone have an idea on if it’s possible to somehow link a standard outdoor PIR (the type you’d use to operate a floodlight etc) to smartthings?
The best I can come up with so far is to connect it to a smartpower outlet, which would know when say, more power flows through it due to a floodlight lighting up. But this seems like a bit of a waste of energy, plus if the bulb blows, detection is screwed.
Any ideas? TIA !
Not a standard outdoor PIR as such but I mounted a cheap Xiaomi zigbee " Human Body Sensor" PIR sheltered by eaves that works with Smartthings. It has survived the recent winter and currently reporting 99% battery.
Homeseer makes a zwave floodlight outdoor pir and zooz makes a zwave stand alone outdoor model.
I have 3 dumb pir motion sensors linked to ST, I use a regular Fibaro relay between one and the light, and a Fibaro double relay between the other two and their lights. There are posts on the forum with diagrams.
Alwas is correct - that’s a good way of doing it. Assuming you’ll be using a PIR that closes the contact when motion is detected, and then releases the contact whenever motion times out, just make sure you adjust parameter 20 to a value of ‘1’. The default ‘0’ assumes the connected switch is momentary (which it’s not) and a setting of ‘2’ would toggle state on contact change, meaning you can get the light out of sync with the input (closed = off, open = on). A setting of ‘1’ ensures that it will always be in sync, even if the light gets turned off by another means before the motion times out (or if it’s already on when motion begins)
There’s a limitation of the above approach - as far as SmartThings (or any other platform) is concerned, the only ‘device’ you have is a light. The PIR is also hard wired to the light, which means it will always operate. Another approach would be to make the PIR itself ‘smart’, that way you have 2 devices - a motion sensors and a light. This allows more complex automations, notifications etc because you’ve decoupled the two.
In order to do this, you’ll need one of these - https://www.fibaro.com/en/products/universal-binary-sensor/
Here’s the DHT for it - [RELEASE] Fibaro FGBS-001 Universal Binary Sensor (UBS)
Disclaimer - I’ve never used the Universal Binary Sensor on SmartThings. I have used it on other platforms though, and it works really well.
Another thing to bear in mind is that I believe the UBS is now technically a discontinued product. It’s being replaced by the Smart Implant https://www.fibaro.com/en/products/smart-implant/ (basically the same device, but in a case). Shouldn’t matter though, the UBS seems to still be readily available.
Thanks for the replies. I actually have a fibaro ubs already, connected to 3 temp probes.
Not sure how I’d go about connecting a switched live to it though?
You wouldn’t, it’s volt free - putting 230VAC into a UBS input will let the magic smoke out.
What you want is a PIR that has a volt free contact. Like this one:
(Here’s a link to the actual product)
The L and N terminals are permanent mains power to actually power the PIR itself. Then you have COM, NO and NC terminals (for those of you who are unfamiliar, that means common, normally open and normally closed).
The names speak for themselves really. The normally closed contact is connected to COM when there is no motion. The normally open is connected to COM when there’s no motion. They swap when motion is detected, i.e. the NO terminal closes and the NC opens.
In the above example, you’d wire the GND of the UBS into COM, and IN1 to the NC terminal, since by default the UBS expects a NC operation. However, if you need to use NO (maybe because the PIR you’re using only has COM and NO terminals) you can change the operation by setting parameter 3 to ‘0’. If you’re using IN2, it’s parameter 4.
One other gotcha is that the UBS needs DC power (9-30V) - so factor that in. Or, try and find an original Fibaro Door Sensor (version 1) - that is battery powered and has a single NO contact that you could use for this.
Fantastic reply, thanks for that. =) that’ll definitely help me when it comes to hooking up to the fibaro.
That PIR seems ridiculously expensive compared to the sort I’d glanced at from screwfix and the like. I found this via a Google…
“… Beaten to it really but if you need volt free switching from a pir then use a normal one but use it to switch a relay or contactor…”
I wouldn’t consider myself an expert by a long shot, but I’m not a complete novice. I’m just wondering if there’s a cost effective way of taking a standard edition pir (i.e one without the volt free contact) and botching in this relay to achieve the same? I’m assuming that if I can pick up a pir for a tenner from screwfix, then link it to some kind of relay etc, then it’ll be a bomb cheaper than the dedicated unit you’ve described above?
Also, bonus points if I can just add this into my existing internal pirs - that would be awesome. Any input and guidance regarding this would be gratefully received =)
I think almost any z-wave device is going to be $20-40 and then you have to piece it together with your “dumb” sensor. If its actually attached to a floodlight, this could save you some hacking
Hue has a Zigbee outdoor sensor…:
https://www2.meethue.com/da-dk/p/hue-udendørssensor/8718699625474
That’s about 70 gbp here! Jesus! I think there may be something to look into with respect to the relay idea. Let’s see how this pans out =)
ah, didn’t realize you were across the pond. Wouldn’t work anyway since it’s North American zwave frequency.
No worries. Yeah so as above you can just use a Fibaro Relay module, and wire the output of a bog standard mains switching PIR to the S1 terminal. You don’t actually even need to connect the relay load terminals to anything - just use the relay state as a proxy for motion (on = motion, off = no motion). SmartThings will always show it as a switch, and you’d be able to ‘override’ the motion state by just setting the relay state from ST.
You’d get some limitations in SmartThings though - primarily that it’s not actually a motion sensor so you wouldn’t be able to use it in SHM or SmartLighting. But, you’d be able to trigger custom automations off it.
Or maybe a custom DHT? That might work. But you’d need to know how to do that, or find someone who does. I’m not overly familiar with DHTs (only copy/pasted and lightly modified other people’s).
Righto decided to order the fibaro double switch relay and I’ll try to have a play later on tonight when the love goblin is asleep. Luckily found a refurb on amazon for 30 quid. =)
Well, issues. Can’t seem to add the device at all. Nothing found. Assuming it’s defective - tried adding using the button on the housing and by adding the physical switch to s1 too.
Fuming !
did you exclude it?
eh? not sure how. theres nothing there to exclude
It’s there to exclude even if it doesn’t show, if you press exclude, triple click, you’ll see it says device excluded. When you add again, you need watch the logs, find the “hidden” device id, and create a new device in the ide with that id, then you’ll have it.
thanks, but no, nothing. it’s as if the device isn’t entering pairing mode at all.
you did this?
