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Best way to determine occupancy

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    Best way to determine occupancy

    I currently own one zwave thermostat and just bought another. I was looking at the Nest because of its "learning" capabilities. I was wondering, what is the best way to determine whether someone is in the house or not besides geofencing? I have multiple motion detectors around the house, but I would want something that wouldnt turn the thermostats down when there is no movement, as someone may be inactive (reading, taking a nap, or not in a room with a motion sensor). Is there a creative way to determine through events whether someone is not in the house based on activity?

    #2
    In essence what you are asking is how to characterize the lifestyle patterns of your occupants. When you take off the table a sensor attached to the individual (assume each person carries a smartphone for geofencing) then other forms of modeling behavior are needed. It becomes difficult to cover all cases, but will be unique for each household. Making some assumptions you should be able to cover most. Sleeping ... pressure sensor in bed. Car not in garage ... beam break or distance measurement, reading ... a specific light is on, etc. Just look at each individuals patterns, identify sensor that helps detect it and combine to make reasonable occupancy assessment.

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      #3
      Originally posted by hs309 View Post
      I currently own one zwave thermostat and just bought another. I was looking at the Nest because of its "learning" capabilities. I was wondering, what is the best way to determine whether someone is in the house or not besides geofencing? I have multiple motion detectors around the house, but I would want something that wouldnt turn the thermostats down when there is no movement, as someone may be inactive (reading, taking a nap, or not in a room with a motion sensor). Is there a creative way to determine through events whether someone is not in the house based on activity?
      One technique is to check your routers DHCP table and see if your the target users phone has an IP, if you set your lease time reasonably low it becomes a way to check.

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        #4
        Primitive but here's what I do.

        Two events, Occupied and Unoccupied. In Occupied I have a number of motion sensors. If any of them triggers, I set a virtual device Occupied to On and start a timer for 30 minutes. Any of the motion detectors fire and the timer starts over. If the timer makes it to 30 minutes the Unoccupied event fires and sets Occupied to Off.

        There's also Blade's BLOccupied plug-in which I used to use. Can't remember why I don't anymore.

        Regards
        Michael
        Regards,
        Michael

        HS3, W10 Home, HSTouch, W800, Z-Stick+

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          #5
          This is the (or at least a) "Holy Grail" of home automation. In my opinion there is no good way to do it yet, and as Michael McSharry said, it is likely to require each person to carry a 'beacon' device of some sort - at least until it's possible to read a biochemical signal remotely . It's easy to say the house is occupied if there is a pattern of motion or other activity that is associated with people. It's also easy to assume that if the alarm system is in armed away mode that the house is unoccupied. The difficulties arise when there is ambiguity. Lack of motion could indicate a nap, or quiet reading, or activity in an area not well covered by devices that detect it. How long does the system wait after detecting motion to decide that the house is not occupied?
          Mike____________________________________________________________ __________________
          HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.548, NUC i3

          HW: Stargate | NX8e | CAV6.6 | Squeezebox | PCS | WGL 800RF | RFXCOM | Vantage Pro | Green-Eye | Edgeport/8 | Way2Call | Ecobee3 | EtherRain | Ubiquiti

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            #6
            Here slowly switching to utilizing combo PIR/Microwave sensors which offer a bit more granularity. That said we are now empty nesters and over the years and due to WAF have shut off or disabled motion sensor events. Have turned down the chatty kathy text to speech status stuff much over the years. The 40 year old parrot does let us know when she wants attention and never has triggered any sensors.

            The alarm panel though does trigger some stuff based on whom is turning on and off alarm. It has never been perfect here as mentioned above. Wife and I are not tethered to our cell phones these days.

            Daughter today wears her fitbit 24/7 and doesn't think anything of it.

            Relating to the thermostat never really touch it; just watch to make sure it is working. Keep the temps steady with the multispeed fan always on. During the winter months we do turn on the fireplace in the great room (TV room) and in turn the heat doesn't work as much.
            Last edited by Pete; October 13, 2018, 11:03 AM.
            - Pete

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