Help with EasyTrigger groups please

[Wade]

I have a number of virtual devices that represent occupancy in individual rooms and another device for occupancy of the entire house. An event (below) turns on House Occupancy and starts a timer based on a group containing all room occupancy devices. A similar event turns House Occupancy off. I cannot get the "on" event to work as I'd like it to.

I want the House Occupancy device's Last Change to update and the timer to restart any time one of the grouped devices updates (their Last Change statuses update each time their associated motion sensor fires). I expected the EasyTrigger trigger "Any device's value in this group had its value set and is not equal to..." to work like the native HS trigger "This device had its value set to..." wherein the value doesn't have to change, but that's not what I'm experiencing. The event only triggers when one of my room devices has been set to unoccupied then back to occupied. Each of my room devices and House Occupancy has the box unchecked for "Do not update device last change time if device value does not change".

1. Is what I'm seeing the expected behavior?
2. If not, what am I doing wrong, or if so, any suggestions for how to get the behavior I'm looking for?

Thanks.

[randy]

If you want a device change in a group to trigger, no matter what it changes to, use the Easy Trigger "If Any device in this group has just changed...". Then use an Easy Trigger group condition. Unfortunately there is no Group Trigger for a device having been "Set".

IN my house I want to show occupancy when ANY motion sensor goes to motion. I want it vacant when ALL motion sensors are at no motion. I use these two events.



It might help if you try to get your motion sensors as close to binary operation as possible by minimizing their motion timeout value. Mine are all PIR and dual mode sensors with an immediate motion timeout.

Using a motion detector with a timeout was initially for direct association with a Z-Wave switch. When you automate with Events, the timeout works against you.

[Wade]

Thanks Randy. The group condition is the trick I was missing. I handle occupancy pretty much same as you do except I have the room by room intermediate devices that I also use for other purposes, and I use a timer rather than delayed off action.

[Wade]

If you want a device change in a group to trigger, no matter what it changes to, use the Easy Trigger "If Any device in this group has just changed...". Then use an Easy Trigger group condition. Unfortunately there is no Group Trigger for a device having been "Set".

I guess I'm still missing something. I changed my event to the below, but the House Occupancy device Last Change still doesn't update with each Last Change update of devices in the EasyTrigger group. Did I misunderstand your suggestion?

[randy]

I guess I'm still missing something. I changed my event to the below, but the House Occupancy device Last Change still doesn't update with each Last Change update of devices in the EasyTrigger group. Did I misunderstand your suggestion?

Did you see where I wrote "Unfortunately there is no Group Trigger for a device having been "Set"." in the 2nd post above? It will still only trigger on a change, not a "set". That Is why i wrote later in that post "It might help if you try to get your motion sensors as close to binary operation as possible by minimizing their motion timeout value. Mine are all PIR and dual mode sensors with an immediate motion timeout.

Using a motion detector with a timeout was initially for direct association with a Z-Wave switch. When you automate with Events, the timeout works against you."

Why do you need to detect that the last change time has changed? Is it because you want the timer restarted each time a motion device is updated? If so, why don't you move your timer to the vacancy Event as I did? My delayed action will not allow the house to go vacant until 15 minutes after the last device goes to no motion.

[Wade]

Yes, I read what you wrote. Apparently didn't fully grasp your meaning. Thanks for the response.