Smartthings Motion sensor for light triggering

[JDRoberts]

@Cyndih70

Yes I already have the ST hub and lights throughout the house. I was just curious as to whether there was an option to have the lights turn off after a selected amount of time with inactivity. So this sounds like what I’m looking for. I had someone here in the forum make the comment to me “True home automation is when you smart devices react without you needing to give voice commands”. So I’d like to expand my current setup to react instead of relying on voice commands alone. Those rooms you don’t walk into regularly, but often enough a light trigger would be handy is going to be my first start. Next on the list is a garage door opener/closer. Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, the " turn off after inactivity"option is built into the official smart light feature, as well as being available in routines and webcore. You can use it with any brand of motion sensor which works with SmartThings.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205949776-How-to-create-lighting-automations-with-Smart-Lights

As for which specific brand/model of motion sensor, unfortunately at the moment the SmartThings brand is probably one of the least liked for a number of different reasons. Different ones will work for different people. Over the last year, that Lowes iris brand has been very popular for zigbee sensors, but in the last month or two more and more people have been reporting reliability problems with zigbee due to some platform changes (not due to the sensors themselves). Which is really unfortunate.

There was a recent discussion on motion sensors you might find of interest: ( this is a clickable link)

Most reliable, small Z-wave motion sensor?

Hi all - I’ve used the Iris Zigbee 3326-L motion sensor with mixed results. Generally it works well but eventually it gets “stuck” on Active, whereby after motion stops Iris Motion Sensor (2nd gen, 3326-L)[quote=“Joe_Battaglia, post:16, topic:108093, full:true”] What about the Battery reporting issues, This is way past getting old now. I have devices dropping off because the batteries are going dead and there is no way I can tell. [/quote] What battery issues have you guys been facing? I’m running into an issue with ST sending apparently inaccurate battery reports on my CR2. Seems to have started within the past couple of weeks, perhaps coinciding with the latest hub firmware update? Specifically I have a few motion sensors that use CR2. On fresh batteries they usually last 4-6 month…