Has anyone done anything which determines the direction someone is walking to fire scenes? For example, when I come in from the garage, I want to shut off my garage lights. I have 2 motion sensors in my garage, and a sensor on the door. So I could say something like:
If the door sensor tripped AND the motion sensor by the door has tripped in the last 5 seconds
then turn off garage lights
I know this is possible with LUUP code, and that’s fine. I just want to know if anyone else has done it and if you have any tips for preventing false positives.
The motion sensors are not well suited for this … because once they trigger they might not re-trigger if continued motion happens during their sleep interval.
i.e. if you have the sleep interval at 30:00 minutes (the default) and you move around every 15-20 minutes … it might trip in the morning and stay tripped all day.
If you shorten the sleep interval the batteries die quickly. Z-Wave radio operation uses more power than detecting the motion.
If you had IR sensors that trip every time you interrupted the light beam that would be reliable.
My Program Logic Event Generator plugin has support for sequenced triggers.
If you had a door sensor in the house and the existing garage door sensor
Input Triggers:
GarageDoor = Garage Door Tripped
HouseDoor = House Door Tripped
The plugin would let you create two new triggers using sequence expressions:
Leaving = HouseDoor ; GarageDoor < 1:00
Arriving = GarageDoor; HouseDoor < 1:00
The first says if the Garage Door is opened within 1 minute after the HouseDoor than trigger the Leaving Condition.
I should clarify, all of my motion sensors are wired to an Elk M1 panel, and the Vera gets the status from them via the Elk plugin. There is no sleep interval, and no batteries. If I trip one, I can trip it again a second later.
All door sensors, glass break sensors, and motions all run through the elk. They are way cheaper than buying Z-wave sensors and are much more reliable. Even the wireless stuff (which is just GE Caddx) is cheaper in many cases, and has much better range. I don’t use wireless motion sensors in areas where I want occupancy detection though.
THe bug is only there if you want to use the ARM/DISARM at the same time as the condition in your trigger.
If you specify to trigger just on the condition it will work properly with the standard UI5 release.
If you are a hacker I can give you the patch … send me a personal email.
I have 2 sensors on my driveway that will alert me if there is someone walking or driving up or down my driveway. Using the elk however for the logic and triggering 1 of 4 fake zones that the Vera then executes on.
I played with your plugin to determine if someone was walking to or from the master bedroom and that worked well also…
The trick is having a very short trip time which is nearly impossible with the wireless sensors… it seems you would need a combo of 3 sensors to truly determine direction if having wireless . This 3rd trigger would ensure the target is far enough from the first trigger to ensure their movement path and didn’t double back during the sensors pre determined trip time
Of course, the ultimate detector for this application is doppler radar (electro-magnetic, or acoustic, could work in this context)- such as many traffic lights incorporate these days. Very fast response, and direct detection of whether the target is getting closer or farther away. I don’t know if there’s a cheap source of these, but from a fundamental engineering point of view these could be (and probably are) produced very cheaply.
[Edit: Actually, a quick scan for “Ramsey SG7 Speedy Personal Speed Radar Kit”, will show you you can get the bits for ~$75.]
A hot wheels toy radar gun which inside is a Doppler radar (and this is a blog that gives some details on it’s circutry Hacking the Hot Wheels Radar Gun) there’s a couple for circa $40 off ebay, perhaps thats another option