Motion Detection + Light Scene

Developer's Corner Scene Scripting
1

I have some somewhat complex scenes, but this issue is probably starring me in the face. Yet, I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

I create a fairly simple scene to arm a motion sensor at a specific time, and trigger certain lights to turn(mainly for cameras), when the sensor is armed and tripped.
The problem, is that when these scenes execute/fire(schedules), not only are the MD armed, but the affiliated lights also come on. In which trigger my cameras’ motion detection and giving me false positives and create drama with many emails and extra recordings…

Thanks in advance for any help…

2

It sounds as though arming the motion sensor makes it trip. That shouldn’t happen unless it actually did recently detect motion. Does the sensor control the lights by direct Z-Wave association or through a scene?

You could try setting the camera motion sensors to bypass, delay a few seconds, arm the main motion sensor, delay a few seconds, turn the lights off, delay a few seconds, arm the camera motion sensors. Messy but it may get over the problem.

An alternative would be to insert Lua into the scenes triggered by motion sensors that ignores triggers that occur just after the main sensor is armed.

Finally, you could place all your motion logic in PLEG. This would allow you to lock-out motion triggers that occur immediately after arming the sensor.

3

Thanks RexBeckett…

The Vera UI doesn’t show that the sensor was tripped and why I think it’s the controller that’s kicking the lights on during scene startup. Or probably more-so how I’m setting up the scene.

For instance, I create a scene, select the lights I want to turn on and set the motion detector to arm by using the GUI.
I then create a trigger for the motion detector, select “an armed sensor is tripped”, and select “device armed is tripped”.
I then create a schedule for 1930 every evening.
Then I create a delay that turns the lights back off after a minute.

This setup works great, with the exception that every day at 1930, the lights come on when the scene is fired. Or if I run it manually.
I have a morning scene that runs at 0615, that when ran, disarms all of the motion detectors.

4
For instance, I create a scene, select the lights I want to turn on and set the motion detector to arm by using the GUI. I then create a trigger for the motion detector, select "an armed sensor is tripped", and select "device armed is tripped". I then create a schedule for 1930 every evening.

This sounds as though your are trying to fit both arming and trip logic into one scene. That would explain your problem.

You need one scene that arms your motion detector - triggered by a schedule.
You need one scene that disarms your motion detector - triggered by a schedule. You may have this already.
You need one scene that turns on your lights - triggered by the motion detector armed trip. This can also have a delayed action to turn them back off.

5

Geeeeeez!!! What a concept… LOL
I knew it had to be something simple that I was screwing up. I guess, because I have a pretty good grip of motion detectors, that I was trying to keep it simple, when in fact, I was making it more complicated :wink: :-[

Thanks RexBeckett for your time and help! The light at the tunnel is that much brighter. Cheers