Variable light sensor

[iostream212]

Looking to add some light sensors to my setup. I want it to do lux calculations with ranges that simulate the human eye. It also needs to have a web server (prefer wireless for easier deployment) so my HA system can poll it. Anyone doing something like this or have a product they can recommend? I have only been able to find homebrew solutions like this one. Thanks!

 

[picta]

You can get an Aeon Labs multisensor that reports luminance. I have tried a couple of "homebrew" sensors as well, but they had very poor quality. I have ended up using Vernier software light sensor LS-BTA, which is very accurate and you can poll the labpro server it requires, however it is not cheap. They do appear on ebay every now and then. You can see the difference between the multisensor and the labpro sensor (House light) here:

 

[iostream212]

Thanks for the info. I like that zwave sensor and that it provides other data as well. I currently don't have zwave but that may change once isy moves out of beta. So you would need a lab pro at each location for that sensor to work? That would add up real quick! $$$

 

[picta]

I only have one labpro sensor and I have "calibrated" z-wave sensors in other locations to add appropriate corrections based on the labpro values. I also run other sensors with labpro, so it's worth it. When I only had a z-wave sensor, I had trouble "detecting" local darkness accurately, and the lights would either come on too late or too early. You also cannot control the poll rate with the aeon, which you really need to increase around sunrise and sunset times. With labpro it works just like a human would perceive. I may eventually get a second labpro for another location, as the z-wave sensor accuracy also tends to deteriorate with battery charge (but they do report battery level, so you can catch it beforehand).