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    Insteon motion sensor to control a light

    Are there any examples of the best way to do this? Having some issues as it seems to work differently than the ISY. For example I tried setting the Motion Sensor itself to have a 5 minute time out, then I made 2 events, one is If a device changes and becomes, and I selected the motion sensor and hit MOTION, then turn on the light. I then made one that says if it changes to no motion turn it off.

    This works, except if you go in and turn the light off from the SwitchLinc say after 1 minute, then if you walk back in the motion never comes back on. Not sure why it never triggers again when motion is detected, it seems like HS3 shows the Motion Sensor as still being in status MOTION and doesn't consider it changing since it doesn't seem like it sends the motion command every time you walk in for some reason.

    On the ISY I would have done this as:

    If the motion sensor changes to MOTION, Turn on the bathroom light, wait 5 minutes, turn off the light.

    Because with that program, every time you walk in, the motion sensor sends a MOTION event with of course just resets the program and it starts over, restarting the 5 minute timer. That doesn't work with HS3, it never receives the motion event beyond the first one, and even if it did it doesn't restart the 5 minute wait, so I did it using the 5 minute wait on the sensor itself, but having issues.

    Are there any examples or tips?

    #2
    With a 5 minute timeout, the sensor will not send another Motion indication until it has timed out. So if you turn the light off manually and then walk back in the room, the motion sensor does not send another Motion indication because it has not timed out yet - the lights don't come on. To make matters worse, now that it sees motion again, it restarts its 5 minute timer and never sends another on command.

    One solution is to set the motion sensor to send all motions (Occupancy Mode ON), but this clutters up the Insteon traffic with an indication for every movement, not desirable for a reliable quick responding system.

    I've found the best compromise is to set the motion detector to a very short timeout, 1 minute. Then 2 events:
    1) motion + light off, then turn light on --> this turns the light on, but stops an extra on command to the light if its already on.
    2) no motion for 2 minutes then turn the light off

    The above logic gives a total of 3 minutes of no motion before the light goes out. But there is only a 1 minute window where turning the switch off manually and walking back into the room leaves you in the dark. As long as there are movements within 1 minute, the motion sensor doesn't time out so there is no extra Insteon traffic. If there is no movement for say 2 minutes, there is an extra Motion On command, but one extra command in 2 minutes isn't a lot of extra Insteon traffic in the system.

    Of course different rooms and different situations require adjustment of the 1 minute and 2 minute examples above, but for most rooms and hallways it works pretty well.

    I go one step further for my bathrooms where you could be sitting still for a couple minutes but really don't want to be left in the dark. I add a third event that says "no motion for 1.5 minutes then dim the light". So if there is no motion for 2.5 minutes, the lights dim to warn you to wave your arms or you'll soon be in the dark.

    Once you get used to having the lights going on automatically, you soon forget to turn them off manually when you leave. Its a training issue for the family, but still an issue when you have guests.

    Also, be sure to change the jumper in the motion sensor to allow remote settings. That way you can program the timeouts, etc right from Mark's awesome plug-in instead of fiddling with the rotary adjustments inside the motion sensor.

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      #3
      Thanks it seems like HS3 handles motion not as good as the ISY does, as the ISY does show motion being detected over and over. So even with a 5 minute time out, if I walk in, leave, walk back in 1 minute later, leave, walk back in 1 minute later, the ISY shows a motion event for each of those times which resets your wait program. HS3 seems to trigger it once and then it just says Motion and won't retrigger. I decided to hold off on setting it up as I ended up ditching Insteon all together and am going to just stick with Z-Wave as HS3 doesn't seem to be nearly as good as the ISY for Insteon, but far better when it comes to Z-Wave and other plugins for sure which is what I like about it more than the ISY.

      Comment


        #4
        HS3 handles Insteon far better than ISY, that's why I ditched my ISY for HS3 and never looked back. If you want the motion sensor to send an ON command every time it detects motion, just turn on the "Occupancy Mode" option in the Insteon plug-in. Then it will operate the same as you had in ISY. Just be aware that mode of operation adds a lot of traffic on the network. Not a problem if you only have a couple devices, but becomes more of an issue when you have a hundred and fifty like I do.

        Switching to Z-wave is a big step backwards in my opinion. It only uses RF, whereas Insteon uses RF + Powerline. So Insteon has two routes to get a message through, where Z-wave only has one.

        A Z-wave motion sensor will have exactly the same issues as the Insteon. That is just inherent in the system.

        Start by changing your Insteon motion sensor to Occupancy mode so it works like it used to in ISY and see how you like it before dumping Insteon for Z-Wave.
        Last edited by Burrington; August 14, 2016, 10:50 AM.

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          #5
          I'm using Mark's 3rd party Insteon plugin but the issue I'm having is that on my keypads, they will work for a day or so, but then I'll press a button and they go psycho, they flicker like crazy then freeze up and you have to pull the air gap to restart it. It did it on my one connected to my FanLinc which was so frustrating but I thought it was maybe that set up, but then this morning on the Kitchen keypad it did the same thing. I pressed a button for something and it started flashing rapidly and flickering and then frozen half on. I didn't see any mention of that at all when searching online.

          Right now I'm using the beta ISY plugin which seems pretty good, it sends all ISY commands and can run scenes etc so I was thinking of keeping the ISY and just using it for my Insteon control. It creates a device in HS3 for everything in Insteon including scenes, and when you press On or Off in HS3 the device turns on just as fast as if you did it from the ISY. I get nervous though when running anything that has to integrate over the network like that. I definitely prefer the idea of having everything integrated on one system.

          Comment


            #6
            Please outline the programming you are doing to the KPLs (keypads) via the plugin.

            I have seen this flickering and flashing before but only when the programming gets messed up. Usually doing a factory reset on the KPL and then using the 'reprogram device' option from the plugin fixes it.
            Mark

            HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
            Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
            Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
            Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

            Comment


              #7
              Thanks I actually decided to give it another go last night, so I wiped all devices and made sure to check each one to make sure there were no weird random links hanging around. So far it seems okay so will see how it goes but if it does it more I was going to post on here.

              I think I was just brainwashed by the others that the ISY is the ultimate for Insteon. It's good but one thing I do prefer with HS3 is how you can manage the links yourself. The ISY sort of takes that over for you and never really lets you manipulate links in the background.

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