I have installed 3 hue bulbs for my basement rec room. However, my family doesn’t want to have to turn the lights on using their iphones all the time so I need a couple of motion sensors. I figure I need one that detects motion and turns the lights on to be able to go down the stairs. But then I would need another one that detects motion while people are downstairs watching TV. Any suggestions?
Wow… talk about timing…I just read this…see below…it’s not available right now but might be worth the wait if you are already part of the Hue Ecosystem.
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There are many good ones that work with SmartThings. ( there’s a new one coming design by Phillips, but you don’t need to wait for it, it won’t be out until late October, and we don’t yet know how it will work with SmartThings). See the following thread for discussion the various options and features:
You didn’t say if you were in the US or the UK. If you are in the US, probably the most popular is one you can get at Lowe’s because it is fast, small, and relatively cheap. 
But there are many other options.
http://www.lowes.com/pd/Iris-Motion-Sensor-Works-with-Iris/999925310
If you are in the UK and you’re willing to take a chance on one shipped from China, then the orvibo is the least expensive. But the SmartThings branded sensor and the fibaro sensor are also both very good, they just cost more.
So again, quite a few choices, slightly different features.
We use motion sensors at our house quite a bit to turn lights on and like them very much.
(BTW, all of the above assumes that you already have a SmartThings hub as this forum is for SmartThings customers. If you don’t already have a SmartThings hub then, yes, wait until October and get the Hue motion sensors as you will not need anything else except the Hue bridge to make those work.)
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@JDRoberts great rundown on your current options!
@pcgirl65 another option for you would be Philips Hue’s newly announced motion sensor, although the product will not be release until October 2016.
I am in Canada. I have looked at the iris motion detectors but I can’t get them in Canada. I am wondering what would be the difference of using Hue motion detector as opposed to just using a motion detector with smartthings? I do have smartthings up and running using version 2 hub.
No real difference in that case.
The new Hue motion sensor has a built-in light meter so it will only trigger if the room is shaded or dark. We don’t know any details yet, though, so we don’t know if you can turn that feature off if you wanted to use the motion sensor to control something else, like a door chime.
And we still don’t know whether the motion sensor will be visible to smart things or not.
The SmartThings Branded motion sensor works well for most people, it just costs more than the iris.
The Fibaro motion sensor is very high quality and very small, but again costs more than Iris.
You should also be able to find the GoControl/Linear motion sensors in their security kit. They will work well with SmartThings and cost less but are much much bigger then the other brands we’ve mentioned and May be a bit slower.
Peq is A very nice small motion sensor, hard to find, and prices vary wildly. But sometimes it will cost around the same as the go control/linear.
So you do have some choices, but my guess is that in Canada the Phillips motion sensor will be one of the less expensive ones. I just don’t know if it will work with SmartThings. But if all you want it for is to control hue bulbs, you may not care whether it works with SmartThings as it will work with your Phillips hue bridge anyway.
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So looking at the smartthings compatibility list there are also Aeon Labs multi sensor (which i don’t need all that sensing), the ecolink zwave (PIRZWAVE2-ECO). Are any of these good? From what I have read in the forum, the zigbee ones work better. But I did read that the iris batteries don’t last very long. I don’t know if I want to wait until October for the Hue’s sensors. They probably won’t be available in Canada until who knows. I just want to be able to turn the lights on when we are going down to the basement and then have them stay on while we are down there and then turn off when we have left.
I have the Ecolink in my hallway and it works pretty well. I would remove the jumper inside and leave it on test mode all the time. That way, it will reset within a minute or less. I’ve had mine for 10 months now and the battery still shows 99%.
OK, we still don’t know whether the new Hue motion sensor will be visible to SmartThings or not, but we do know more about it and all of them are very cool.
It has a built-in light sensor so it can tell whether the room is lighter dark, and you can schedule different Hue scenes based on the light level.
There also promising a response time of less than half a second, which is fast.
And it has an automatic dimming feature so that when it recognizes in activity and it is getting ready to turn the light off it will first dinner a there also promising a response time of less than half a second, which is fast.
And it has an automatic dimming feature so that when it recognizes in activity and it is getting ready to turn the light off it will first dim it. ( that probably doesn’t mean much if you don’t already have motion sensor control lights, but if you do you can see the value. 
)
We also know the list price, which will be US $39. Judging from the past, it will probably be slightly discounted at some stores.
At this point my suggestion would be to wait for that one if all you want is Hue control.
I wonder when it will be sold in Canada? I might wait for it.
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No idea, but it usually comes out around the same time. I believe all the current hue devices are available in Canada now.
I ordered the iris sensor from the amazon.ca link. Ordered two and received one that is obviously used. Link says that these are new. I am sending it back and trying to get my money back. I guess I will wait for the hue’s motion sensor to come out.
I’m in Canada too. I do have the Aeon labs sensors and more than half of them work perfectly and consistantly. And 4 of them fail and drain my batteries. But I can’t tell where the problem lays. The Sensor or ST Z Wave Mesh network stuff?? No one seems to be able to help me solve that.
I will likely pick up 2 of the Hue sensors when they come out. They often have them at Home Depot around the same time you can get them in the States. I want the Hue ones for two reasons.
- The lux sensors on the Aeon ones are pretty dicey. Aeon told me straight out that they only report accurately when the light falls directly on the sensor.
- The Hue ones work locally and will have amazing response time as @JDRoberts indicated. This will work well for any non-morning lighting routines. I say non-morning ones because I don’t use Hue for morning lighting anymore as always have to manually adjust when we are home on holidays, or the lights come blaring on at 4:14 AM!! No good. So with Core I am able to pre-enter in my Holidays, and so it ignores morning lighting on those days.
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Have these Hue sensors come on the market yet?
Yup. You can buy them on Amazon.
But I have since changed my mind on trying them. They are just too limited for my tastes. You can only have 2 programs for them. I like mine to change a few times during the day.
So what did you decide on then?
Oh, I already have motion sensors and such. I was just going to give these a try since they were local processing and thus should be much faster response time. But I make do nicely with Core. 
Yeah I bought the iris sensors from amazon.ca for a good price and I also have them working with CoRE pistons.
Yes, we have four of them and like them very much. It’s true they are Limited to two time periods per day, but they also have the built-in light meter which in a sense takes care of a third condition ( daytime, but dark). They are very fast, very easy to set up. Very reliable. but they only work with devices attached to the hue bridge, smartthings doesn’t see them.
Details in the following thread.