Setting lights to act as night lights

I'm starting to understand this, but am getting confused at some points in the programming. Someone should write a book on this with sample step by step programming to do a variety of tasks. Anyway...


Using a motion sensor, I want to have a light in my hall turn on at 10% between 10:30 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. if motion is sensed and turn off after 5 minutes of no motion. This will act as a nightlight if my son has to go to the bathroom at night.

By the way the type of switch is below:

Decorator Dimmer Switches
WS12A-S

[matt (support)]

Using a motion sensor, I want to have a light in my hall turn on at 10% between 10:30 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. if motion is sensed and turn off after 5 minutes of no motion. This will act as a nightlight if my son has to go to the bathroom at night.

Hello,

I Would:
  1) Create a Device "nightlight" for your WS12A switch (use "Generic Light Switch" type).
  2) Create a Device "nightlight motion" for your motion detector.
  3) Create an Action Group "motion sequence" that does the following actions: Send Device Action "Set Brightness" to 10% and Send Device Action "Turn Off". For the Turn Off action, select the "Delay action by" checkbox and put in 5 minutes. Also make sure the "Override previous delayed action" is set.
  4) Create a Trigger Action that fires whenever a "nightlight motion" X10 On command is received; Set the condition (Condition panel of dialog) to be "if dark"; Set the action (Action panel of dialog) to Execute Action Group "motion sequence."

The above does the action sequence if Indigo thinks it is dark based on the sunset and sunrise times. If you want to only do it between 10:30 PM and 5 AM, then create a Time/Date Action for each of these times that modifies a new Indigo variable, say "myIsDark." Have the first Action set myIsDark to true, and the second set myIsDark to false. You can then use this variable as the condition to step #4 instead.

Your wall switch module does not respond to absolute brightness (or dim) commands well. Because of this, instead of dimming from off to 10%, it will flash to 100% on, then dim down to 10%. There are other X10 switches made by Leviton (extended dim capable), PCS, and Smarthome (preset dim capable) that handle this much better and don't nova to 100% first.

You could hack around this by replacing your 2 actions in the Action Group with an action that does a Send Device Action of type "Brighten by %" to 10%, and for the off action a "Dim by %" with an amount of 100% (not 10%). It isn't ideal, but should help avoid the nova to 100% which won't be much fun on the eyes in the middle of the night.

Regards,
Matt

The above does the action sequence if Indigo thinks it is dark based on the sunset and sunrise times. If you want to only do it between 10:30 PM and 5 AM, then create a Time/Date Action for each of these times that modifies a new Indigo variable, say "myIsDark." Have the first Action set myIsDark to true, and the second set myIsDark to false

Can you explain this part a bit more. Variables are one of the things I'm just not getting.

[matt (support)]

Can you explain this part a bit more. Variables are one of the things I'm just not getting.

Sure, try these steps:

  1) Inside the Variable List window, press the New... button.
  2) Give the new variable the name myIsDark (name isn't important, just use the same name throughout these steps)
  3) Create a new Time/Date Action for the time-of-day for 10:30 PM every day.
  4) From the Action panel of the dialog, choose "Modify Variable" Type.
  5) Select myIsDark from the Variable popup and make sure the "set to true" radio button is selected.
  6) Repeat steps 3-5, but change the time-of-day to 5 AM and select the "set to false" radio button.

Now you have a variable that will have a value of true between 10:30 PM and 5 AM. The value won't get its initial value set correctly until the next trigger action occurs (10:30 PM or 5 AM), so you should double click on the variable in the Variable List and manually set its value to either "true" or "false".

Lastly, select the original motion Trigger Actions and, from the Condition panel, select the "If variable" radio button and select myIsDark from the popup menu and make sure the "is true" radio button is selected.

Regards,
Matt