Garage door open triggering lights, if not already on.

[ufd108]

I think timers is the way to go. My garage leads directly into my basement so I have the action of opening the door between the garage and the basement turn on the basement lights, and they go off 15 minutes after either garage door closes. The problem was, if I was working in the basement 15 minutes after my wife or son came home, the lights would go off and leave me in the dark.

My solution was to install a couple of Fibaro motion sensors and use timers. When a garage door closes, it starts a timer. But whenever my motion sensors are tripped they reset the timer. Result, the lights never go out if someone is in the basement. Another event turns the lights off when the timer hits 15 minutes. Works great.

If you can't figure it out let me know and I'll post pictures. Busy studying for finals right now, so I don't have the time at the moment.

[CinBRandon]

I may have figured out a way... I've discovered timers. Let me know if I'm headed in the right direction

- I want the lights on at sunset, and to go off at about 10p every night, and be on during this time regardless of garage door.
- After 10p lights stay on if the garage door has been opened, until 5 min after garage door is closed.

===EVENTS===
- Event 1, at sunset, turn lights on
- Event 2, Garage open turns lights on, stop Timer
- Event 3, Garage closed restarts Timer
- Event 4, When 10p, and garage door is closed, restart Timer (to turn lights off for the night)
- Event 5, When timer is 5min, and after 10p and before sunrise, turn lights off

[CinBRandon]

To make it simpler - you don't need the condition that the light is already on; you can turn them on again. That way you can have the removed delayed action right before setting up the delayed off.

A problem I see with your logic is that with the 'isn't on' condition in there, you don't run the child event actions, so you'll never set the 2nd delay action.

I have that in there, because if the lights are already on for some other reason, I don't want this to be a trigger to turn them off. For instance, the front eve lights are on every night sunset to 10p, or the garage flood lights may be on while playing basketball in the driveway.

[zwolfpack]

To make it simpler - you don't need the condition that the light is already on; you can turn them on again. That way you can have the removed delayed action right before setting up the delayed off.

A problem I see with your logic is that with the 'isn't on' condition in there, you don't run the child event actions, so you'll never set the 2nd delay action.

[CinBRandon]

Another failure below. The lights went off 15min after first opening, not 2nd opening. I may just need to start over. Cause now the more I think about it, would be better to have the lights go off X minutes after closing.
So... would need these criteria

> Garage door opens
> If lights are not on, turn them on. (2 different circuits looked at independently). If lights are already on, don't turn them on or off.
> Garage door closes, turn lights off after 5 minutes. (unless they were already on.).
> If garage door opens within that 5 min window, would need to have lights still go off 5min after 2nd closing. Unless they were already on before initial opening of garage.

This is getting complex fast... only been on this software for about a week, certainly a new way of thinking. Thanks for the help.

Failure...:

[CinBRandon]

The following didn't work. The lights came on, but never went off. I'll try another action next.

[zwolfpack]

Problem may be that you are cancelling the device action after queuing the child events. The event engine is asynchronous, so the child events could actually run before the cancel action. Result would be that the child event's delay actions get cancelled immediately (if this makes any sense...)
Try moving the cancel action ahead of calling the child events.

[CinBRandon]

I tried editing the event of the Garage door opening that triggers the two separate events of turning the lights on for 15 minutes, if they are not already on. It didn't work. Have to eat dinner now, will try other things later.

Here's what didn't work:

[zwolfpack]

I would think in each event. I have another event that turns on the light when, at nighttime, any of the garage doors are opened or motion is detected.

[CinBRandon]

You will probably want to add an action to remove (previous) delay actions before setting a new delay action. Otherwise, when you open-close-open in a short span, the lights will go 15 min after the 1st open, not the 2nd. When you cancel the previous delay action it will go off 15 min after the last one.

Yes, I had this thought. Thanks!!!
I'm trying to figure out where to enter this action. Right now the garage door becoming open is setting off the action of manually triggering the two separate events, one for each lighting circuit... so the status of one light circuit does not affect the other.
Would I need to enter it in the Garage door event, or in each event for each light?

[randy]

well that seemed to have worked... now i need to wrap my head around it and understand why. thanks for the help.

This thread may help you understand.

[zwolfpack]

You will probably want to add an action to remove (previous) delay actions before setting a new delay action. Otherwise, when you open-close-open in a short span, the lights will go 15 min after the 1st open, not the 2nd. When you cancel the previous delay action it will go off 15 min after the last one.

[CinBRandon]

well that seemed to have worked... now i need to wrap my head around it and understand why. thanks for the help.

[CinBRandon]

well that didn't work. will delete those actions and try it under the event for the garage door triggering the other events, though I don't think that will work because I want each light circuit to work independent of the state of the other light circuit.

[CinBRandon]

I don't see this check box.
Would it be under each manual event for each light circuit, or under the event for the garage door becoming open and manually trigger the two separate light circuits?

==== after typing above...

OK I found the box, under each manual event for each light circuit, I added and action of "Run another event"," left the event blank, but checked the box. running test now.