Hey all!
I just had this idea…
The wife and I usually stick around the living room in the sofa watching TV and usually quite motionless as seen by a motion sensor.
That usually implies that the night time “hello home” sentence fires at it’s given time.
I’m no Dev here but… Could anyone come up with a way to use some thermal detection or something so the night mode doesn’t go into effect until everyone has left the living room?
It would have to be either zwave or WiFi…
Pressure sensors for furniture exist. Card Access (now owned by Control4) makes a Smart Pressure sensor that is a plate to put in or under a couch / chair to know if someone is sitting in it.
Occupancy sensors are better then motion sensors, and detect what you are looking for as well. Not a ton of options for occupancy in the home market yet, some are on their way. Lots in the hospitality / commercial space though.
I have been kicking around this exact same problem. I have been thinking about a device that uses both IR motion detection and would read the ambient light in the room. So I could have it trigger an event in the SmartThings hub if there is no motion and the light is below a preset level. So when you leave the room turn off all the lights and there is no motion for say 5 minutes after that the room is declared empty. I can do this a lot cheaper than some type of microwave motion detector (who wants to sit in front of one of those every night)
Looks like you just need a rule “Night Mode = No motion AND the TV is Off”