[OBSOLETE] GE Motion Switch (26931) and Motion Dimmer (26933)

Hello,

I’ve purchased this switch 26931 for purpose of hopefully, somehow get it to configure like this: I would like to have a way to use the motion sensor only to trigger another smart outlet (recirculating hot water pump for early morning wake-up, without turning on the light in the master bath.) Is this possible to do once the handler is installed on smartthings? the recirculating hot water pump has a temperature sensor on it so it would only come on as needed. I would want do this only certain time of the early morning, as later on during the morning I would like the light itself to come on as well with motion with the recirculating pump for the hot water. Is this even possible or am I better off using a separate motion sensor.

It does expose the motion sensor for use to the rest of SmartThings so yes, you can trigger actions based on it.

Thanks, Nathancu!

I was able to use the motion for recirculating hot water pump and works great. I used webcore to change modes of the switch for “Occupancy” during the day and then switching it to “Vacancy” during the night to prevent motion activating the lights at night. It’s too there isn’t a 10 minute duration, 5 minute option is sometimes too short and 15 minutes is too long. I’m going to attempt to see if Webcore will somehow allow the switch “Smartthings” to be set to 15 minutes, but maybe Webcore can force it to shutoff on 10 minutes, unless someone knows how to do get 10 minutes duration. Thanks again Nathancu.

Dave

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Hi, i have a question about this DTH. Is it possible to have the DTH change “operating mode” of the 26931 when the hub changes to “Away”. I currently turn on the lights used by the 26931 when we are away but then the motion sensor (since there was no motion after 5 min) turns them off (when in mode “vacancy” or “occupancy”). From what i have found, the behavior works this way using any mode other than “manual”. So is it possible to switch the operating mode to “manual” when the hub mode changes to “away” and then back to “occupancy” when the hub mode changes to “home”? i am using the smarthings hub gen 2. Thank you, Robert

Yes, with WebCoRE. You get access to most of the features of the device. You could also ignore the onboard timers, watch the motion sensor and and write your own logic for how to handle the light controls.

Thank you. I will take a look at WebCoRE.

@MichaelS, thanks for all the work you do for the GE Motion Switch handler. I have read this thread a few times and you suggest WebCore to handle a few situations the base handler doesn’t. The one of interest to me is limiting triggers on the motion sensor only to a specific time of day/night. I only want to use the motion sensor say between the hours of 11 PM to 7 AM.

I saw early in the thread the suggestion to use WebCore rules. I am a developer by trade but just now becoming familiar with this type of development/integrations. So my question: can the handler not have a setting to check if the trigger falls between a specific time frame? WebCore is perfect for applying actions rules from a single motion event, but like myself, I would believe most would only want to use the trigger event to be active within specific hour (sunset/sunrise).

If this shouldn’t be a part of the base handler, is it possible? If so, I would be interested in how to implement time period restrictions within handlers.

Again, thanks for you work! It is community which allows IoT to thrive in environments such as Smartthings.

Creating a time based trigger internally to a DTH is difficult. Unlike regular smart apps, I haven’t had a lot of success getting triggers to happen in a DTH, and my theory is that they don’t ‘run’ all of the time like the SmartApps do. In other words, I usually have to open the DTH to have it ‘active’. Not sure that is reality, but from what I have looked at it seems something like that is going on.

Thank you for the kind words, and I would still suggest WebCore be used to turn on and off the motion sensing activities. That it is how I do it for my night time routines where I don’t want the light to come on with motion during certain times.

Thanks for your reply. I think I understand. After my previous post I continued researching and found the Smart Lighting App. Of course it is from the light’s perspective but it does check motion sensor. Have you tried it with your handler?

I may give it a try to see if it response.

Btw…outside of online Smartthings documentation and just finding community posts, do you have any online resources you can point me in DTH coding?

I installed the Smart Lighting app and it seems to be working. They key is not to look for motion as you migjt think but for the motion switch to be on.

As a developer I find there are usually more than one way to resolve an problem (or opportunity as we say at work). It may not be precisely correct, but I see the WebCore as an event driven push response and thr Smartapp as a monitor for an even response.

Hi, First, this is awesome work. Thanks!!!

I have a GE Motion Switch (26931). I got it installed, the device handler installed, and they paired. The problem I run into is that if I enable the motion sensor, it ignores the mode and turns on with any motion. For example, I have it set to manual with motion sensor on and walking into the room turns it on. I tried manually setting the switch to vacancy mode with the directions in the manual, but the same thing happens. I would like to:

  1. Turn the fan on 1 hour out of every 4. Piece of cake with smart lighting.
  2. If no motion for 20 min and the fan is on, turn it off without messing with rule #1. I think I can do this with exclusions in smart lighting IF the motion sensor worked.
  3. Alternately, have it work in occupancy mode and IF the off button is pressed, leave it off.

I tried using the triple button press for top and bottom to act as an override, but neither seems to do what I expected. I.E. If fan turns on and you want it off, triple press top to put the delay to 30 min. or triple press bottom to put the switch in manual mode. With either, when the motion sensor is enabled, everything else is ignored and it acts like it’s in occupancy mode.

Lastly, In the switch configuration options, it says “Invert Remote Switch Orientation. On/Off” What does this do?

Thanks,
Jeff

Thank you for continuing to develop this DTH!
I had been using whatever DTH Smartthings automatically assigned but this is so much better!

Perhaps this question was answered at one point but I didn’t see it:
Is there a way to execute this locally? It continues to say cloud. I want to automate it via the Smart Lighting app but want it controlled locally like all my other lights.

Custom DTHs cannot run locally.

I’ve installed four of these around my home and run this device handler with no issues. It has been maybe 6 months since my last install. I received two of them for Christmas this year and did my install a couple hours ago. I cannot for the life of me get the new one to pair. Does anyone know if Jasco has updated firmware?

I received two and thought I may have got a faulty switch, but both of them are acting the same way. I’ve done the device exclusion, and factory reset multiple times. Has the pairing procedure changed? Thanks for the help, and thanks for the device handler!

Go into the IDE and republish all of your custom device handlers. There’s a bug where they become ‘stale’ and prevent proper device pairing.

Thanks! That got me a bit further. Now I have the switches recognized, but the response time to commands from SmartThings takes minutes or sometimes no response at all. I did notice that under the data column on IDE that it has networksecuritylevel: ZWAVE_LEGACY_NON_SECURE

My other working switches have MSR numbers.
I’ve tried a hard reset and a zwave repair. Any other suggestions?

The switches themselves are fine and respond quickly to motion as the others do.

I think I’m going to go ahead and label this one as a defective switch. I was able to get the second motion switch to work, but it appears when the first motion switch is installed it wreaks havoc on my Z-Wave network and slows other commands down to the point of being unresponsive. Thanks for the help!

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If I manually turn the switch off - the motion state switches to inactive (even if motion is still active) and then shortly becomes active again. So if I manually turn off the lights and walk out - my walking out will turn the lights back on. Anyone else experience this and know how to remediate the issue?

Thanks

Is there a DTH for this switch which adds the functionality of setting on/off inteervals? My switch controls a whole home fan and I need all the existing functionality of GE Motion Switch 26931 with the added controls of setting on/off intervals.

Recycle timer / repeat on off command / cycle timer)

You don’t do that kind of thing with a new DTH. Device handlers tell the system how to interface with a device, they don’t control automations. There’s still hope though. Put the switch in manual mode and use webcore or some other automation engine like Smartlighting or the new app automations to drive the automation.