Is there any kind of photocell sensor that works in UK that can allow me to get a reading in ST to know what the light level is? the reason I ask is because I currently turn on certains lights x minutes before sunset, but somedays it gets dark before that time on cloudy days. So it will be better if I can have a sensor placed in one place of the house to take a reading.
There are quite a few multi sensors that have a lux reading, including both the Aeotec multisensor and the Fibaro multisensor. Both of those are Z wave.
The Hue motion sensor is a zigbee device that has a built-in light sensor, but it can be tricky to get it to work with SmartThings.
Vesternet has a good brief discussion of using the multi sensors for light readings.
Thanks, The Fibaro Motion sensor looks very appealing to me and seeing as I have had good results with most of my fibaro sensors I like the idea of sticking to Fibaro. It’s more affordable than some of the other ones too. Does the Fibaro Motion sensor Gen5 have a default ST device handler or is there a custom one? do the handlers report the lux readings to be able get these readings on webCoRE? so for example if lux reading reaches a certain value then trigger something. If so how often does it report Lux reading? or is the reporting parameter set within the sensor? so if it drops to x then report?
I have a fibaro FGMS-001-ZW5 and personally want to throw it in the bin, but that’s me, others tend to like it.
The range of the sensor is really bad compared to the ST multi sensor, also it is slow to detect movement, takes about 2 seconds, compared to ST one which is instant.
Now to answer your questions ST has a default device handler, but it is basic. You need to install a custom one for lux and other detailed settings. The lux sensor is very slow to update which is annoying…not sure if that is normal, but is slow…it could be something to do with saving battery?
Have you tried changing some of the parameters on the Fibaro? It’s one of the most configurable motion sensors made for home automation. If you make it more responsive, then it will use up battery faster. But it’s your choice.
The following is from a US site, but the Fibaro, like the Aeotec, is available in both regions so that review still applies.
The FGMS-001-ZW5 looks good, i ordered one. Does anyone have a link for a custom DH that reports can use the lux readings? How long does the battery on this thing typically last? Also, what is the default lux reading interval? Does the interval mean that at certain intervals it will update what the lux reading is? so for example at 7PM it might be x, then at 7:15PM it’s y, and 7:30PM it’s Z. If you query the lux reading from lets say WebCoRE, am I correct in assuming that it will get the last reported lux value? So let’s say at 7PM the device reported X and stored it and the next interval is set to report in 15mins which will be 7:15PM but if i query the lux reading at 7:13 will it give me the reading that was made at 7PM?
I want to run this with WebCoRE in conjunction with a before sunset condition. So basically before lets say 1hour before sunset to check if lux reading drops to a certain reading by a certain time. So if lux reading hasn’t dropped to x by 20minutes before sunset then to still turn on the lights.
I got the fibaro FGMS-001-ZW5 sensor and so far impressions are it looks really good and seems to work great. I thought a custom device handler was needed for the lux readings? when I added it to ST, ST assigned device handler “Fibaro Motion Sensor ZW5” which seems to have lux reading on it too. Could this be a new device handler that is now built-into ST?
Using the ST device handler, i have the default parameters set which states that checkInterval value is set to: 28920. Is this mili-seconds, seconds or what? Whatever it is, I can’t seem to make sense of how and when this checkInterval parameter actually works, because if there is motion, it pretty much instantly updates the status and logs it in the events. The lux reading also doesn’t seem to directly have any pattern of intervals either. For example some times there are gaps of about and hour between lux readings, sometimes there are gaps of literally minutes. For most of the day the gap is around the hour mark. But at certain times of the day gap becomes minutes. Like for example this morning at 7:06AM UK time it got a lux reading, then every minute after that until 7:11 then every 14 to 30 minutes until about 9AM. So doesn’t seem to have a pattern. Is this normal? does the checkInterval not effect the lux reading reporting times?