Ambient Light Sensors/Meter

Posted on
Fri Nov 23, 2018 6:04 pm
miketeel offline
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Joined: Jun 26, 2013

Ambient Light Sensors/Meter

Does anyone know of preferably an Insteon device or another device, that you can read the current light level with the purpose of executing triggers when at certain levels?

Posted on
Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:44 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Ambient Light Sensors/Meter

The only Insteon possibility I can think of would be to use one of the EZIO analog devices with some kind of light sensor. But I've never even looked to see if that's possible so it's just a guess.

I would recommend adding Z-Wave to your setup and get a multisensor (there are many) that reports light level (as @lanbrown suggests).

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Posted on
Fri Nov 30, 2018 4:51 pm
dduff617 offline
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Re: Ambient Light Sensors/Meter

Insteon Motion Sensors have a light sensor. They transmit a group-2 on / off when light level goes above/below a preset threshold. Threshold can be set using Interfaces>Insteon>Set Motion Sensor Day/Night Sensitivity.

The group-2 command is not transmitted instantaneously - there is some delay -i.e., some some smoothing or averaging of light levels to suppress bounce/jitter - that may be good or bad for your application. It does work reasonably well as a dusk/dawn sensor; might be too slow for other applications. I think that the updated Insteon Motion Sensor II supports the same type of thing, but I don't know for sure.

I also have several z-wave multi sensors. They are Zooz ZSE40 (aka Monoprice/Vision/Yale). In Indigo they create four separate devices (motion, temp, humidity luminance). The luminance sensor value is a percentage from 0-100. You can set a "sensitivity" value between 1-50 that reports the change that the device has to see before transmitting a new value. More sensitive means it transmits more and this will make the batteries not last as long. I presume this works similarly to other z-wave multisensors. These could definitely be used to trigger actions in Indigo based on brightness level.

Posted on
Sat Dec 08, 2018 2:07 pm
jtburgess offline
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Re: Ambient Light Sensors/Meter

I tried to set the Day/Night Sensitivity of my Insteon Motion Detector 2842; its not working.
I see in the log:
"Garage Motion Detector" raw insteon command; send failed (no acknowledgment)

How is this being sent? It must be wirelessly, but through what wireless transmitter?

I use an old X10 wireless receiver, which is receiving, because I see:
"Garage Motion Detector" off (button 2)

in the log (which is what prompted me to discover this thread).

One possibility that while it can receive Insteon commands, it can't transmit the longer address.

Or maybe its radio transmitter is weak and I need to move it closer to the garage.

Or don't Insteon Access Points have wireless transmit/receive? in which case I'm stumped, because one Access Point is really near my garage.

Posted on
Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:00 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Ambient Light Sensors/Meter

Insteon motion sensors are RF-based. Insteon itself is dual-band (meaning both RF and Power Line) so devices that are "dual-band" support both and will route signals over both. So you need to have some dual-band devices in your house to bridge RF and Power Line. Most newer devices that are connected directly to power are dual-band.

X10 devices don't talk the same RF as Insteon, so that won't help.

The other property of motion sensors is that they are battery powered (unless you specifically have them connected to a USB power source) and as such they go to sleep to conserve battery. To send commands to them you must wake them up (press and hold the set button, usually until an LED starts flashing and/or a beep is heard). That will make sure that they are awake to receive commands.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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