What do you do when you have overnight guests?

[BrettS]

My wife and I are going to have someone staying with us for a few months and as I hit the 'night' button by my bedside the other night, it occured to me that I'm going to need to make some automation changes to accomodate a guest. For example, the 'night' button turns off all the lights in the house, sets back the downstairs thermostat, adjusts the upstairs thermostat, and arms the alarm.

The problem is that if our guest hasn't gone to bed yet I'm not going to want to hit that button and turn off all the lights on her or turn up the temperature downstairs if she'll be down there for a while. Arming the alarm might be an issue too because she may set it off if she wants to go out on the porch at night (night is the best time to go outside this time of year in FL... at least for us yankees) However, I do still want to make sure that the thermostat gets set back and that the lights are shut off and the alarm is armed once she does go to bed.

I'm planning to set some sort of "Guests present" flag in HS and that can change the behavior of my 'night' button so that it will only adjust the upstairs thermostat and turn off the lights in the master bedroom, master bath, and closet. That way I won't affect our guest if she's still awake, but I still need some way to get the house shut down when she does go to bed. Hmm... and now that I'm typing this and thinking it through, I will also have to figure out what to do if she goes to bed before my wife and I. In that case, I do want my button to shut down the house.

Maybe the best thing would be to set up a 'night' button for her as well and set up homeseer with a flag for each button, so that it knows when the night buttons have been pressed. When my wife and I go to bed we can press ours and it will turn off the lights in our room and set a flag. When she goes to bed she can press her button and it will shut off the lights in her room and bathroom and set another flag. When both flags have been set, then HS knows everyone has gone to bed and it can shut down the house. That way it doesn't matter who goes to bed first. I can do the same thing if we have guests in our other guest room.

Does that sound feasable to you guys? It means that I need to train her (and any other guests we have) to hit the night button every night, but if I put a palmpad by her bed or something it will probably be more convenient for her than getting out of bed to hit the light switch, so that should encourage her to use it.

Any other suggestions for this issue? Any suggestions for automation with house guests in general? I'm thinking that I may leave some passageway lights on very dimly to help if she needs to get up in the middle of the night or something.

Thanks much,
Brett

 

[bh00]

If you have a magnetic sensor on the guest's door, or a motion sensor in the hall, could you set that so if the guest wakes up in the middle of the night and opens the door or whatever, to go downstairs, it would unset the alarm and turn the hall lights on?

 

[BrettS]

If you have a magnetic sensor on the guest's door, or a motion sensor in the hall, could you set that so if the guest wakes up in the middle of the night and opens the door or whatever, to go downstairs, it would unset the alarm and turn the hall lights on?

Gee... thanks... you just gave me a whole new problem to be concerned about The logic I described above is based on people staying in bed once they've hit the night button, but I guess I do need to consider the possibility that people will go back downstairs after they've been in bed. Especially because our new guest will be a new mom, so I imagine she'll be going down at times when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night.

I'm not sure I want a motion detector that will disarm the alarm... on the off chance that someone does break in I wouldn't want the alarm to disarm when they walked in front of the motion sensor, but hopefully I can tell her that the alarm arms when she goes to bed and she'll need to disarm it if she wants to go out again during the night.

I think the bigger concern is what to do when people go downstairs after the house has been shut down, then go back up and hit the 'night' button again. Originally I had planned to reset the night button flags at the time the house got shut down, but that would mean that everyone would need to hit their night button again in order to re-shut down the house. I guess I'll need to leave the flags active until morning, so that way someone hitting their button a second time will shut down the house again.

There is no protection for two people getting up at the same time and then going back to bed at different times, but I suspect that might be a pretty rare occurance.

Brett

 

[electron]

As I mentioned in the chat room, I relied on motion sensors for the lights to come on at night (slow ramp to 50%) wherever there is activity, and the lights will stay on until a few minutes after no activity. Once there is no longer any activity, it dims down to around 30% as a warning that the lights will go off in 60 seconds. If motion is detected, then it goes back up to 50%, or dims to 0% if there is no motion. Something like this would take care of the lighting situation.

 

[BrettS]

As I mentioned in the chat room, I relied on motion sensors for the lights to come on at night (slow ramp to 50%) wherever there is activity, and the lights will stay on until a few minutes after no activity. Once there is no longer any activity, it dims down to around 30% as a warning that the lights will go off in 60 seconds. If motion is detected, then it goes back up to 50%, or dims to 0% if there is no motion. Something like this would take care of the lighting situation.

I do like the motion sensor idea and I'm actually moving in that direction, but I don't think I'll be able to get that infrastructure in place by the time my guest arrives. I think I have four or five motion sensors now and I just got a radio shack antenna for my MR26A that will hopefully cover the whole house. Assuming the ones I have work well I'll have to order more.

Motion detectors might be able to help with the thermostat setbacks too... if there is no motion after a certain time, then the thermostat should be able to be set back.

Do (or did) you have issues with motion sensors not detecting motion when they should? People sitting on the couch watching TV or something like that without much motion?

Thanks,
Brett

 

[electron]

I had a motion sensor pointed at the couch, so if the light would go off, and you managed to sit perfectly still for a while (this is hard to do!), one only had to wave their hand or so when it dims to the warning value, and it would ramp back up. You can make this even more user friendly by adding some intelligence (i.e. if it dims to the warning level 2+ times, increase the '# of seconds before dimming to warning level' value or something). If you want to go all the way, you could also start using pressure sensors (SureAction pulsors are the best), I just put one of those under my bath tub, and it works well.

 

[drozwood90]

I had a motion sensor pointed at the couch, so if the light would go off, and you managed to sit perfectly still for a while (this is hard to do!), one only had to wave their hand or so when it dims to the warning value, and it would ramp back up. You can make this even more user friendly by adding some intelligence (i.e. if it dims to the warning level 2+ times, increase the '# of seconds before dimming to warning level' value or something). If you want to go all the way, you could also start using pressure sensors (SureAction pulsors are the best), I just put one of those under my bath tub, and it works well.

Since we live so close...I thought I'd ask, where did you get your pulsar sensors?

I've seen those here and there. I figure it might be great to detect if someone is sitting on the couch.

I was going to put DS10A's on the recliners...but these might work better...

I know on my wife's chair, the cushion comes off, so I should be able to put a pressure pad under it...but the kitchen has bothered me...how to tell if someone is there? So, I was thinking pressure pads under rugs...but that's kind of hoakie...the problem I have for the kitchen, I can't install these Pulsars until AFTER we get the island (I think they don't like to be pre-stressed...so gluing them to the joists...then putting the island in might be bad!).

Thanks!

--Dan

 

[electron]

I got mine from AutomatedOutlet.com. Not sure if they are still on the site, but I am sure he can get more (I think I might have to get more sensors soon anyways). I also had them installed under my kitchen floor, but lightning blew one of them up, so it doesn't work well. You can have up to 4 sensors per zone, and up to 3 zones if you go with the larger 'processor' (can't just hook them up to the M1). I would recommend you check out the manual, as it includes some really good information about how the system works, and very detailed installation instructions (including different scenarios).

You are probably right about the kitchen island situation, but unless you are doing it soon, it might be worth installing one of them as a trial, and call it a loss when ready to do the entire floor (it might work tho, you never know).

 

[RHT]

My wife and I are going to have someone staying with us for a few months and as I hit the 'night' button by my bedside the other night, it occured to me that I'm going to need to make some automation changes to accomodate a guest. For example, the 'night' button turns off all the lights in the house, sets back the downstairs thermostat, adjusts the upstairs thermostat, and arms the alarm.

The problem is that if our guest hasn't gone to bed yet I'm not going to want to hit that button and turn off all the lights on her or turn up the temperature downstairs if she'll be down there for a while. Arming the alarm might be an issue too because she may set it off if she wants to go out on the porch at night (night is the best time to go outside this time of year in FL... at least for us yankees) However, I do still want to make sure that the thermostat gets set back and that the lights are shut off and the alarm is armed once she does go to bed.

I'm planning to set some sort of "Guests present" flag in HS and that can change the behavior of my 'night' button so that it will only adjust the upstairs thermostat and turn off the lights in the master bedroom, master bath, and closet. That way I won't affect our guest if she's still awake, but I still need some way to get the house shut down when she does go to bed. Hmm... and now that I'm typing this and thinking it through, I will also have to figure out what to do if she goes to bed before my wife and I. In that case, I do want my button to shut down the house.

Maybe the best thing would be to set up a 'night' button for her as well and set up homeseer with a flag for each button, so that it knows when the night buttons have been pressed. When my wife and I go to bed we can press ours and it will turn off the lights in our room and set a flag. When she goes to bed she can press her button and it will shut off the lights in her room and bathroom and set another flag. When both flags have been set, then HS knows everyone has gone to bed and it can shut down the house. That way it doesn't matter who goes to bed first. I can do the same thing if we have guests in our other guest room.

Does that sound feasable to you guys? It means that I need to train her (and any other guests we have) to hit the night button every night, but if I put a palmpad by her bed or something it will probably be more convenient for her than getting out of bed to hit the light switch, so that should encourage her to use it.

Any other suggestions for this issue? Any suggestions for automation with house guests in general? I'm thinking that I may leave some passageway lights on very dimly to help if she needs to get up in the middle of the night or something.

Thanks much,
Brett

I would keep your goodnight macro but also run automated lighting triggered from motion detectors. In past installations I have had a few night modes for this motion automation:

Mode 1 Evening starting at sunset this mode/flag is for when it is nite and you still are moving around. Lights are ramped up on motion activation, hold for a time and dim down over a long period(10 minutes) to a low light level. Usually your ext lights come on during this time.

Mode 2 Late Night evening flag turns off and late night flag turns on. This is for when you want to go to the kitchen for a snack or for a pee etc.. Lights are ramped up on motion activation hold for a time and dim down to zero over a long period. Your goodnight button can force the flags. Normally your ext lights turn off and switch to motion timed mode durng this mode

With the automation, if you have no guests, its nite nite as normal, if guests are wandering around, the lights will come on and eventually turn themselves off.

I have had the best success with mirror optic motion detectors as they are very sensitive to movement at all angles which is good for lighting triggers.

If you put a motion the the guest room, this could automatically flag for a guest and adjust tstat and security settings such as arming security but bypassing guest used zones. You could unbypass the zones after a certain time.

Hope this helps

RHT

 

[sic0048]

While I like the motion detected lighting (which could be used all the time), the rest seems like an awful lot of time, energy, and money to handle the alarm when guests are around. Why not simply have the alarm arm the perimiter only when you have guests? It's obviously not as complete as having the motion detectors armed, but you should still have an alarm activation occur if/when a person tries to enter the house.

If I was going to spend some money, I'd spend it on good outside lighting which could be activated by motion detectors. This would be a big deterant for a person trying to break in IMHO. The whole idea is to keep people out of the house to start with. While motion detectors are an extra layer of protection, it is probably the least effective and most error prone in the situation where you have guests and unusual nighttime behavior (ie someone might be walking around when there isn't normal).

 

[Photon]

Brian said,"Why not simply have the alarm arm the perimiter only when you have guests? "

I take that approach when we have guests for just a few nights. I simply activate the system in STAY mode rather than NITE mode. No matter what gadgets I dream up or what rules I create, they aren't gonna think about our security system when they get up for whatever reason in the middle of the night. If we ever have anyone stay for enough time to make training them worthwhile, maybe I'd activate more of the system. To keep it simple, I think I'd buy another fob for guest use and train them on just three buttons: Arm, disarm, and lights. If they can't get used to that, then back to STAY mode.

 

[felixrosbergen]

oh wow...those joist mounted sensors are waaayyyy cool....this woudl be nice at the side of the bed so it can set the lights at low level when the wife gets up at night... too bad the bedroom is on the 2nd floor and i'd have to get these in before the ground floor sheetrock ceiling goes in....

What do these things cost?

 

[electron]

To be honest, I don't remember, but I can't imagine a better occupancy system than this, it's even pet immune, and sensitivity can be tuned post install.

 

[felixrosbergen]

To be honest, I don't remember, but I can't imagine a better occupancy system than this, it's even pet immune, and sensitivity can be tuned post install.

Dan,

Is the sensitivy done at the panel which can be remote? Could i have them put these into the ceiling before sheetrock run the wires and then tune them in later? I just looked, seems like the sensors are only $40 or so...thats not bad.

I shoudl do this and not tell my wife. When the lights come on when she gets our of bed but there is no motion sensors she will think it's black magic...haha

I'll just tell her i implanted a RFID chip while she was asleep and can now track her every move.

 

[electron]

All sensors should be homerun to your HA can. The sensors are terminated there and connected to a 'processor board'. So, yes, technically you could put the sensors in first (make sure you read the manual several time). I would however strongly suggest to call SureAction, and talk to their support. From what I have heard, their support is really good, and they probably can give you tips on how to place them in 'advance'.

I think the main issue would be that if a sensor isn't placed in the right location (don't think you can remove them), you might want access to add a new sensor to make up for the bad placement. However, if you are only placing 1 sensor per zone (i.e., 1 on each side of the bed), it shouldn't be as hard.

If you do install them in advance, keep in mind you can have up to 4 sensors per zone, and up to 3 zones maximum per board. You get a NO or NC output (selectable) per zone, so you could use multiple boards. Sensitivity can be adjusted per zone, with a dial, located on the board.