PLTS Newb Help Simple Night Light

Plugins & Plugin Development Program Logic (PLEG)
#1

I am very new to Vera as I only received it a couple of days ago and I quickly realised that I don’t really want to be writing scripts for what I consider should be fairly simple tasks. I’m hoping that someone can help me get my head around PLTS because try as I might, even after reading plenty of posts here I just can’t understand the concepts.

My system:
I have all z-wave devices installed including mainly light switches and an aeon 4 in one sensor. So far I have managed to get everything functioning correctly and have set up one or two simple scenes.

The scenario:
I have a lamp in the loungeroom which I use as a night light and I want to automate it based on the light level but only if it’s night time. To that end I have installed the Day or Night plugin and set it so that night is effectively from an hour before sunset until an hour after sunrise. That should take care of those dull days when it gets dark a bit earlier or gets light a bit later.

The solution so far:
I have created a PLTS device with the following:
Inputs: IsDay and IsNight
Device Properties: LightLevel
Actions: Lounge Light ON

From this point I am totally stumped. I want to have the light come on when it’s night time and the light level drops below 150 (level still to be finalised) and switch off in the morning when the level is above 150 but I’m finding the remaining tabs of the plugin very difficult to understand. I’m also not sure how to evaluate when the light should switch off because in the morning it could be light while the Day or Night plugin still suggests that it’s night time yet I would still want the light to go off if the light level reaches my benchmark. Can anybody help me with what I need to set in the schedules (if anything), and Conditions tabs? Once again, sorry to be such a newb but at this stage I’m still struggling to get my head around scenes which probably doesn’t help.
Cheers,

Phil

#2

I am wondering why you are using a PLTS (Program Logic Timer Switch) since there is nothing in your scenario that is based on a timer ?

Also turning on/off a light based on light levels could cause a cycle unless there was a lot of hysteresis in the settings. (i.e. Light Level is High … turn off light … Light level goes low … turn on light … repeat until daytime when light level is bright without light)

Do you want the light on all night ? Or just for some period of time based on motion ?

#3

Thanks for the reply and I apologise for the delay coming back to this but I have quite a few projects happening at the moment. The idea is to have the light stay on all night until morning so the intent is to turn the light on based on two conditions. Those conditions are firstly that my day or night device says it’s night but only once the light level falls below a preset value. The light should then go off once the day or night device says it’s day but only once the light level reaches a certain value. My plan is to use the same logic to control my garden lights but with both scenes, the intent is that down the track I may decide that the off cycle might happen at a specific time.

#4

You do not want to use PLTS … You want to use PLEG

In PLEG create a timer … call it Evening.
Start: Mon-Sun on at Sunset + 30 minutes
Stop: Mon-Sun off at SunRise - 30 minutes

You can have a light sensor as well via Device Propery
LightLevel bound to some light level device …

Condition:
ExteriorLightsOn Evening and (LightLevel < 150)
ExteriorLightsOff Not ExteriorLightsOn

Add Actions to the above two conditions to turn on/off your lights respectively.

#5

Thanks very much for the feedback. I’ll give it a try and let you know how I go. Hopefully that will be in the next few days.