Light Level with Motion Sensor II

[brmeeke]

Hi Mark,

Over the last several weeks, I have been experimenting with the Light Level and Day/Night setting on my Motion Sensor II. My logic was that on a dull cloudy day, the light level inside the house would be darker than on a bright sunny day. This is especially true as the seasons change too. In the Fall and Winter, the daylight goes to dark very fast versus the Spring and Summer when the transition takes longer. So I created an Event that tests the Light Level to determine when the event should fire to turn on the house lights. Today, I noticed that the event had fired yet the display of the light level was still well above the threshold and the time since the last update was at least an hour old. Does this make any sense to you??

Is it possible that internally, the Motion Sensor is testing the light level according to the parameters but HomeSeer is not updating the most current reading?? I have the Heartbeat set at to test every 5 minutes or so. Is there something that I can do that would refresh the Device Values more frequently?? I am still testing the parameters for the Event and it is a much harder job to do when the screen is showing a reading that is not current.


Thank you

Brian

[mnsandler]

can you post a screen shot of the event definition

the device values only update based on the heartbeat

[brmeeke]

Mark,

Here is a PDF of the Event logic, the Device Management Screen and the Insteon Device Settings. The event fired at 4:42pm. What is interesting is that the Device Management Screen was last updated at 5:08 when the Light Level is 80. Note the timestamp at the bottom of the screen. A level of 80 should not have triggered the event. But just as important, the light level at 4:42 was probably higher than it was at 5:08. I can send you some more screen shots tomorrow if that would help.

Hope that these are helpful.


Brian

[mnsandler]

are you logging the light level device values? there are free plugins that will help with this. You never know if you are getting some strange values

[brmeeke]

No - I was not aware that such a plug-in existed. Was thinking that I might have to write something but am pleased to learn that it already exists. I will look and try to find the plugin. Did you write it? Any clues that you can provide that would give me a hint as to what I am looking for??

[mnsandler]

I don't have such a plugin. I think there is one named Device History, but if you look in the updater under the Utilities category, i think you will find something

[Burrington]

Your heartbeat interval is set to 4 hours and 13 minutes. You probably intended it to be 4 minutes and 13 seconds...

[Burrington]

If you just want to log device status changes on one device, you can also do it by creating an event that triggers with "Device changes and becomes any value" on the light level device. Then make the action "Run a script or script command" "Immediate" and in the scipt box put [&hs.writelog("Light level",hs.devicevalue(80))] (omit the square brackets). Then any time the device value changes, it will log the value.

[brmeeke]

Thanks for the pointing out the Heartbeat timing. You are right - I was set for every 4 hours where I wanted every 4 minutes. I have changed the parameter to its shortest interval (every 23 minutes). I am also going to try the Script command that you suggested. I have not had any luck with Scripts so far but was determined to figure out a solution. I may ask you for some help if I get stuck.

Hey Mark - Is it possible to change the Addin so that the system can do a heartbeat more frequently; like every 5 minutes? During the day, it is not relevant but the transition from Day to Night and Night to Day needs to be monitored as frequently as possible so that we can catch the window between "the room is bright enough" and "why is the house so dark?".

[mnsandler]

the "plugin" offers the heartbeat intervals based on the device firmware. I can't change them. Please remember that a more frequently heartbeat will shorten the life of the battery. This is probably why 23 mins is the shortest possible.

[brmeeke]

Good Morning Mark

I always wondered about the periodicity of the heartbeat. The numbers did not seem to follow a logical pattern. The fact that it is a part of the firmware explains everything. I know that the more frequent heartbeat setting will shorten the battery life. My long term solution was to use the AC adaptor versus a battery. hopefully the system will also refresh the light level when it detects Motion but only testing will tell for sure unless you have some insight.

[Burrington]

For what you're trying to do, it would be a lot easier to use the "Dusk/Dawn Sensor" device of your MSII. It turns on when the light drops below the value set in the "Night Threshold" setting. Then it turns off again when the light goes above the value set in the "Day Threshold" setting. Currently, yours is turning ON (indicating its dark in the room) when the light goes below 90, and turns off again (indicating the room is light) when the light goes above 100. The spread between the two values is called Hysteresis, which prevents it from flipping back and forth between ON & OFF as the light slowly changes, clouds go by, etc.

So, you can use this as the trigger for your event. In your case, just change the first line of your ON event to "House Nighttime Sensor - Dusk/Dawn Sensor", "Changes and becomes ON". Leave the rest of your event as is. Likewise, use "Changes and Becomes OFF" for your Off event.

Set the Day and Night Threshold values to the light levels you want the lights to turn on and off. You will need to check what the light level is when the lights are turned on, and make sure your Day Threshold is higher than that. Otherwise, the system will say its dark, turn the lights on, and then say its light again and turn them right off.

The sensor sends the Dusk/Dawn change as it happens, it doesn't have to be polled. So, change your heartbeat back to every 24 hours and create another event that gives you a warning email when its not heard from in 50 hours (just over two days, so it has to miss two consecutive heartbeats to give you an alarm.)

[Burrington]

If you just want to log device status changes on one device, you can also do it by creating an event that triggers with "Device changes and becomes any value" on the light level device. Then make the action "Run a script or script command" "Immediate" and in the scipt box put [&hs.writelog("Light level",hs.devicevalue(80))] (omit the square brackets). Then any time the device value changes, it will log the value.

Sorry, I made a mistake in this. Should have read:

[&hs.writelog("Light level",hs.devicevalue(xxx))] where xxx is the device Reference ID (omit the square brackets). You can find the reference ID in the "Advanced" tab of the device. I like to turn on the reference ID column by checking "Show Device Reference Number on Device Management Page (for developers)" on the Setup>Custom tab.

[brmeeke]

Again - Thank you for your help. I am going to play with the Script command. I am also going to experiment wth the Event to use the Dusk/Dawn flag. Maybe some combination of the Dusk/Dawn & Light Reading will let me control the lights the way that I planned.

[brmeeke]

Hi. I wanted to that you for your assistance with my MSII. Using the Script command and playing with the other settings, I think that I am getting closer to my goal. It is not perfect yet but I am getting there.