Looking for some advice. I want to turn on and off a light switch using an occupancy motion sensor in a bathroom because my daughter tends to leave the light on. My first issue is the sensor takes like 5 seconds when entering the bathroom to detect motion. My second issues is the it doesn’t detect motion even though there is motion and turns off based on the off schedule in the scene. This is very annoying especially when taking a shower, no matter how much jumping you do it doesn’t turn back on.
I have tried 3 motion sensors Aeotec 4 in 1 - ecolink and intermatic
Any advice from the experts would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to the world of sluggish motion response; I just walk slower (just kidding, but not really)… I’ve tried everything, every sensor, I can’t find what causes the delay. If you have a scene that turns the lights on and off, and activate it with a Minimote, the response is instant, which points to the motion sensor.
I ended up using a door sensor instead for the above reasons. I also work that into fan control. Nothing is perfect but in my house no one leaves the door closed if its not in use. That combined with a motion can be used if your bathroom door does get closed when not in use.
So mine works if the door is left open for more then 5 min with light on and no motion turn off light. Turn on fan if door is closed for more then 5 min. and Turn fan off after 5 min of door being opened and light off.
If girls go in to use sink, and mirror the motion with the door open keeps the light on. If you use the john your gonna close the door so leave light on. If your in the shower door is closed so light stays on. Works good for us but only if people in your house use the door.
Have to find you what is the everyday use/process for you and your guests to really see what works for your house.
Most motions are battery operated and sleep. They are also slow to wake up and respond.
I have an alarm panel and all my doors, windows and motions are wired to the panel then connected to vera. Pantry, laundry rooms and closets have lights that come one when the door sensors trip and there is about a 1-3 sec delay.
Hidden sensors cost 1.50 and install in the top of the doors never to be seen or take batteries. Motions are 10.00 and work good, except in some cases don’t sense motion. I have big dogs and pet sensitive motions. I’m assuming that and the pattern can be the problem. My hall sometimes I can pass the sensor and the red light on the sensor never trips. Could also be cheap sensors.
Do not use a timer on your scene, but let the light go off when no motion has been detected by the sensor.
Either that or modify the sensor to allow faster retriggers. You do this by modifying the Z-Wave values. At least that is the case for the Aeon-Labs 4-in-1, and Fibaro 3-in-1 (technically 4-in-1 as well) motion sensors that I use myself.
By default both are configured to maximize battery lifespan, and reduce activity as much as possible.
The Fibaro came with detailed Z-Wave settings explained in the manual, but for the Aeon-Labs you can obtain these easy as well by Googling for the engineering documentation. Just keep in mind that with the wrong configuration you will drain the battery in no time. For the Aeon-Labs that can be solved easy by running it via a USB power adapter instead.
Still if you want your light to be ‘on’ for 15 minutes after motion has been detected, then just have a scene turn the light on when sensor triggers motion, and a seperate scene to turn it off when sensor triggers no more motion.
On the Aeon-Labs that is adjustable via parameter #3 (default = 240, as in 4 minutes). This setting also prevents another motion trigger event from occuring (to save battery, and reduce Z-Wave traffic congestion).
I will try to door sensor since it makes sense that the door would be closed if the bathroom is in use especially for showers which seems to be the biggest issue. Also I will look into the settings which i have not changed from the default.
Is there a difference between intermatic or ecolink which are the 2 I currently have. The aeon labs a put outside since it has light motion and temp.
I do this in many rooms. First of all you want to use PLEG and build different conditions and scenes for turning the light on an off. That way you explicitly turn off the light after a given period of no motion. Secondly, there really isn’t such thing as a “occupancy motion sensor”- those are two different things. A motion detectors are for triggering security alerts, and hence are designed to prevent false-alarms. There might be a sensitivity setting, but it is still designed to NOT trigger unless it is pretty sure there is motion. Contrast that to an occupancy sensor, which is not designed to be used for security applications, and hence can have a hair trigger since it is no big deal to get a false positive.
I use both occupancy sensors and true pet-friendly motion detectors in my logic. So while I conceptually trigger lights off the occupancy sensors, I also check the latest timestamp on the motion detectors to make sure someone is home/in that part of the house/up that time of night before I turn on the light. Mostly because my cats roam around and would trigger lights like crazy. No recent human presence recorded by the motion detectors, no lights.
Occupancy sensors for Vera can be difficult to source. I use EnOcean/Leviton LevNet, but that is dependent on the EnOcean plug-in and Leviton is in the middle of changing US EnOcean frequencies, so I can’t really recommend that route. Others on the forum may have other suggestions towards occupancy sensors.
At the cost of a Z-Wave motion sensor on either side of an entry way, you can keep accurate track of occupancy in certain rooms, even if some people stop triggering the motion sensor in the room themselves (watching movie in livingroom, in the shower, sleeping in bed, etc).
Based on the direction of the triggers, you can detect if a person is added to the room, or leaving it.
To make the system as effective as possible, you only cover a small area on either side of the entry way with a motion detector, perhaps even avoiding a few feet from the floor to ignore pets. Door/Window Z-Wave sensors can also be used if they have an external terminal connection, such as the Enerwave one, and then combine them with a cheap infrared beam detector of eBay.
The Schlage RS200 ones seems miles ahead of the ones you mentioned, and that I have experimented with, btw.
I thought about door sensors, but honestly… I don’t want to have to have all of the doors to all of my rooms closed for the lights to be off. And trying to figure out if there are people in a room? You can’t do it with a door sensor. Probably the only way would be to have some kind of RFID reader on the perimeters of all rooms/doors/entry ways and have each person have a RFID chip. Even a motion sensor isn’t foolproof.
[quote=“johnes, post:9, topic:185513”]The Schlage RS200 ones seems miles ahead of the ones you mentioned, and that I have experimented with, btw.
I thought about door sensors, but honestly… I don’t want to have to have all of the doors to all of my rooms closed for the lights to be off. And trying to figure out if there are people in a room?[/quote]
You seem like your talking about a bedroom or living room. Hes talking about a bathroom. Very few people use the restroom with the door open, but yes it can happen. Also I have very small step in pantry and small closets that door sensor work perfect. Large walk in closets that the doors are normally open will not work. I also do not use door sensors on the bedrooms as they are 99% of the time just left open anyways.
But anyways back on topic this is about restrooms. And door sensor works great for the FAN. If the door is closed for more then 5min and the light is on, then someone must be in the shower or taking their time on the john, which both means turn the fan on. When the door opens and light turns off leave fan on for 5 min then shut off. Like the poster said try doing this with only a motion in the restroom. In the shower and sitting still on the john provides false information to the motion sensor. Not only that motions sensors and steam from the shower can also lead to false or inaccurate readings.
Funny you mention this, I ordered door sensors today for all three of my bathrooms, just so I could automate the fan and have the two-sensor control you describe. I think I will turn the fan on when the door first closes, and then turn off the fan when the door is re-opened (the fans in my house are just noise makers, they weren’t even vented to crawl space)… I am using Occupancy Sensors for the initial light on…
Mine turns off 5 min after the light is off and the door was opened (but door can be closed behind you). It’s a small bathroom and some will close the door behind them if it was dirty job, also after taking a shower I want the fan to run as it will stay steamed up for a while after.
It turns on in something like 3-5 min. after the light was turned on, door was closed. This is to prevent the fan from running while your taking a quick pee break, washing your hands or the like. If the wife is spending an hour in front of the mirror she usually leaves the door open for this kind bathroom use which will also keep the fan off.
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