WAF aceptable automated lighting

[tshephard]

Soon I will have every light in my home switched over to UPB. I've been living with about half of them done for 3 years and wanted to just finish them.

The only real automation I do is turn on outside lights at dusk or with motion at night. I also turn on two rooms that have motion detectors when someone walks in them at night. I also have the master bedroom light turn on dimly for this late night bathroom runs.

I would really like to start turning off lights when they are left on, but most attempts to do in the past have caused a really low WAF to engage. People end up having to wave their arms and such. Not good!

I have several rooms that have UPB switches, but other than making sure they are off when the alarm is set to the away mode, I'm not really doing anything with them. Feels like a waste.

What kind of light automation are you doing that maintains a high enough WAF?

 

[electron]

Pretty loaded question. Great automation is 'invisible', and turning lights/devices off automatically rarely works well. I personally have several night-events which light up different rooms based on the path a person takes, but that's about it. Only some backup rope lighting will turn off automatically, any other light has to be turned off at the switch, or via various RF remotes.

One thing I did automate is my walk-in closet, will be doing the same thing for various other small storage spaces.

What kind of motion sensors are you using? I guess you could achieve better results when using the more expensive occupancy sensors.

 

[Digger]

I had the lights in the laundry room turn on when someone entered the room as often people are carrying the laundry basket and its not easy to turn the lights on. When I used the ELK for automation I would have the lights stay on for 6 minutes and the timer retriggered on motion. That worked well enough.

Now I am trying to use Homeseer but I just dont see how to retrigger the timer.

I did the same for a garage I converted into an excersise room.

Other things I do is have my workbench power shut down when I turn the lights in the shop off.

Do the usual stuff as well such as shut off all lights in armed away, most lights on in an alarm, shutoff the furnace and ceiling fans on a fire or CO alarm.

 

[kwilcox]

I've had pretty good WAF with my system (see Fortress in the showcase section for the write up). My biggest problem with auto light off is rooms where somebody would sit in a chair and read or surf for a while. Currently this includes the bedrooms and the library. No good answers yet because I don't like using pressure sensors

 

[tshephard]

Pretty loaded question....
What kind of motion sensors are you using? I guess you could achieve better results when using the more expensive occupancy sensors.

I know its loaded ;-) Just trying to stir up some conversation! I just have cheap alarm motion sensors wired to my caddx. They work well enough for turning on a light.

I had the lights in the laundry room turn on when someone entered the room as often people are carrying the laundry basket and its not easy to turn the lights on. When I used the ELK for automation I would have the lights stay on for 6 minutes and the timer retriggered on motion. That worked well enough.

Now I am trying to use Homeseer but I just dont see how to retrigger the timer.

It took me quite some time to get my head around the way HS does this type of thing too since there are no timers. I much prefer the way Stargate was programmed with if/then/else statements, timers, and variables. Anyway I think on HS you would have motion trigger the light on event. The action would be something like this.

removed delayed action for light
turn light on
turn light off in 15 minutes

So each time the motion triggered the event it would stop the delayed action for the lamp, in essence stopping the turn off timer. Then start a new timer for 15 minutes.

If no more motion is detected, the light will turn off after the delay of 15 minutes.

It works, but its a different way of thinking to me.

Keep coming with the automated lighting ideas that work, I like to hear them!

 

[tshephard]

I've had pretty good WAF with my system (see Fortress in the showcase section for the write up).

Where do I find this showcase you speak of?

 

[oberkc]

I will offer a few ideas that I have found valuable:

- turn interior light scene on automatically at dark (turning off at specified time)
- activate certain lighting in morning
- activate key lights when garage door is opened
- group key lights into scenes (all exterior, for example) that can be activated at key locations
- exterior motion
- away mode (fewer lights than normal, random)
- Automatic holiday, and other seasonal, lighting
- automate landscape lighting
- motion detection for closets, bath
- garage doors activation and status from key locations
- remote access via smartphone

 

[NewZealandHome]

I am using this product in my walk-in closets... I think its WAF acceptable, because its cheap, and you can install it in 5minutes.. you can set the length of time it takes before it turns off with no movement.. and its built into the light bulb itself... http://www.evoscan.c...ent-sensor-tip/

another idea I have heard of, install a 90deg dual-PIR, and aim it at the couch or where people are stagnant, and you definately pick up even the slightest of movements.

 

[drozwood90]

Now I am trying to use Homeseer but I just dont see how to retrigger the timer.

I wrote my own script called upadateevent. It's posted in the Homeseer Script forums.

I've also seen where someone just made an event:

remove events for device
turn light on
turn light off delay

What I did not like about this, it kept sending the ON signal, or you needed two events with conditions where one only ran when the light was off, the other when on.

So, I created update event, which essentially does the above, but it WAY more powerful. Delayed events, script calls, device calls for ON/OFF/DIM, etc.

--Dan


I should have kept reading...Looks like TIM put that same event in his post. Ehh...I still recomend my update event. It just seemed easier, since you just call it with the device name and time, it does everything else.

 

[kwilcox]

Where do I find this showcase you speak of?

Looks like the showcase has been moved to the archived section. Bummer, I always liked reading about other projects in the showcase. I guess the current thought is to do that sort of thing in the blogs section. Maybe I'll move mine there. Anyway, here's the link:

Fortress Showcase on CocoonTech

I have some generic coding examples for lighting macros there as well which you might find interesting.

edit: You might be interested in the places where automatic lighting makes loads of sense in our house:

The kitchen
The Bathrooms
My home office
My wife's sewing room
The laundry room
My workshop


Generally, there's a lot of movement in these rooms when they're occupied so I do a lights out after 2 minutes with no movement and never have issues. The ademco sensors that I use are very sensitive and work pretty much flawlessly in these areas.

 

[pete_c]

I went to utilizing the small occupancy/motion ceiling little circular devices (don't recall the mfg right now...will look).

They work well functionally but my wife preferred that the lights not go on if she got up in the middle of the night.

I do have many outdoor automated lighting events which are still in place and work well. I did also have an issue with water condensation on the ventilation fans which went to the roof via the second floor bathroons (like 8 foot runs) which I automated. The condensation problems went away when I replaced the duct work with insulated ducts and the automation keeps the fans going when needed.

I did also go to utilizing 3" X 5" (or 4" X6") flat glow backlighting displays all over the place; not really bright; nice soft glow. These are in all of the hallways and bathrooms.

 

[tshephard]

I think I would like to try an occupancy sensor. I only have two alarm type motion sensors now with pet lenses. Not working to great for our 40lb boxer pup.

What is a good occupancy sensor to play with. I would wire it to my Stargate digital input and have HomeSeer play with the logic. I doubt that it would be pet immune but if the sensor is good enough that I can have the light turn off 2 minutes after no motion like kwilcox is doing, I think it would still be ok.

Alternatively I could use two sensors and have a pet immune PIR trigger the light on, and an occupancy sensor keep the time off trigger from firing.

I've started playing more with UPB links lately. I have a pattern of turning off my office light then turning on the stair light long enough to walk down them, then turning off the stair light at the bottom of the stairs. Walking in the dark to the kitchen/living area to exercise. I thought, this is not how living in an automated house should be.

So I created a link when I double tap the stair light on after 7pm (to keep the kids from messing with it), it

turns on the stair light
turns off the office light
turns on the kitchen light
After a 30 second delay, the stair light turns off.

I can reverse the process when I'm done and leave the kitchen area by double taping the kitchen light off.

This works great and I enjoy it. The only problem is I'll be the only one that ever uses it.

 

[kwilcox]

I went to utilizing the small occupancy/motion ceiling little circular devices (don't recall the mfg right now...will look).

They work well functionally but my wife preferred that the lights not go on if she got up in the middle of the night...

I program the room switches so that an off tap disables occupancy sensing and an on tap re-enables it.

 

[electron]

I program the room switches so that an off tap disables occupancy sensing and an on tap re-enables it.

When the house is in night mode, the bedroom lights will only ramp up to 10% (including the bathrooms) when motion has been detected. If you do need 100% at night, just need to hit the ON button again, and it wil ramp up to 100%. Hitting the Off button once, turns the bedroom lights off, hitting it again, turns off any additional lights which were left on (such as the bathroom).

Night mode also affects closet lighting, so I can get in my closet without waking the wife up. These events work really well, probably my favorite part, and I am only using basic X10-RF gear and UPB light switches.

 

[kwilcox]

Pretty much the same here. I enable night mode with a keypad in the MBR. It turns off all lights, closes the garage door if open, disables all bedroom sensors, sets intruder mode, and enables nighttime lighting. 10% lighting in the bathroom is a real eye-saver too. WAF on all of these is very high.