Automating lights

Posted on
Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:16 pm
Turribeach offline
Posts: 429
Joined: Feb 06, 2015
Location: London, UK

Automating lights

I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to perfect the science of automating lights with motion sensors. This looks like a simple problem but if you want it to work perfectly (and have a moaning wife like mine) then it takes some work. I basically use a timer to switch off lights when no motion is detected. The timer duration varies according to the use of the light. Hall timers are very low, 45 seconds. Kitchen is 15mins, bathroom 20 mins, study 5mins, living room 45mins, etc. With these timers and some triggers (see below) I now get pretty much zero failures on switch on/off lights at the right time. Thought of posting this here as I have searched around and have not found something similar.

1) Event: Light is switched Off => Actions: stop Light timer, wait 5 seconds and turn motion sensor off. This is needed to cover the case when lights are manually switched off using the light switch which is still active.
2) Event: Light Timer Inactive => Conditions: If Light is On and motion sensor is Off and Light Override variable is False. Actions: Switch Light Off. This is the main trigger that switches off the light when there is no motion detected. Light Override variable is used when I want the lights to be On no matter what, to avoid having to change any triggers.
3) Event: Light Timer Inactive => Conditions: If Light is On and motion sensor is On. Actions: Restart Light timer. This trigger resets the timer if motion is continuously detected (i.e. party) while the timer becomes inactive.
4) Event: Light is switched On => Actions: restart Light timer. This starts/resets my timer if the light is switch on manually.
5) Event: Motion sensor on => Actions: restart Light timer, turn Light on, restart All Lights timer.
6) Event: Motion sensor off => Actions: restart All Lights timer. I have an overall timer for all lights, this is started when motion sensor is off. It basically covers all lights and will switch them off in 1:30hs if no motion is detected.

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