Help with Event with motion sensors

[pcgirl65]

Thank you everyone for all your help. I am currently testing out these two events. I have changed the 3 minute timing in the OFF event to the motion sensors. So far the lights are turning on when entering the room and turning off when no motion for 3 minutes. I haven't tested the lights when watching TV yet. I will do that this weekend. I have learned a lot in this process!

[cowinger]

Would the OFF event work better if the first ANDIF said Any devices instead of All devices? And/Or the second ANDIF had a value of On instead of 100%? Just wondering if both or one of these ANDIF's could be the issue.

[pcgirl65]

Thanks so much for all your help! So last night I walked into the room and the lights went on. I turned the TV on and I set the lights to Blue using Alexa. After a while the lights went off and of course they wouldn't go back on with motion because the TV was on. So I turned them on with Alexa still on Blue. After I turned the TV off the lights didn't come back to default colour of white but they did turn off after the TV plug went to <10 and there was no more motion. I just went into the room again and the lights turned on but they are still Blue. So, I have two issues. That the lights stay on when watching TV no matter what and that they always come on with motion and no TV to 100% white. Here is what I have right now for the events:

[logman]

OK, this one didn't work. The lights don't turn off.

The reason the lights are not going off is because your first two conditions can never be true at the same time:

If Any device in group has it's value changed
AND IF All devices in group have been at value "0" for at least 3 minutes.

Obviously if any device in the group just changed, then it will never be true at that instance that all devices in the group have not changed for 3 minutes.

It's a mind teaser, but logical.

--Barry

[pcgirl65]

OK. The first thing you may or may not know, On on a Hue light is setting it to the last level, not to full brightness. If you want a Hue light to full brightness you must set it to 254. How bright do you want the Hue lights to come on with your On Event? If you want them to come on at full brightness have your On Event set them to 254. Add the Remove Delayed Device Action to your On Event, it doesn’t matter the order of the Actions.

Then add one condition to your off event: IF JowiHue Basement is equal to 254 and remove the condition of the TV wattage. This would do the following:

• If the TV is Off and you walk in the room the lights will turn On (to 254). After there has been no motion for 3 minutes, as long as the lights are at full brightness, regardless of whether the TV is on or off, the lights will turn off
• If the TV is on and you Walk in the room, nothing happens. Since the lights are not at full brightness, the off by no motion will not trigger, so the lights will remain wherever they were set
• Then add a third Event to set the Hue lights to TV watching level when the TV is turned on, also making it so that the absence of motion will not turn them off

I can't seem to set the hue lights at 254. It is only giving me options of ON,OFF, BLINK, Colour loop,%. So I set it to 100%. The only problem with the way you have it is that we may be watching TV with the lights the way they were when we walk in the room. IE 100% White. This is why I have the TV plug in the event. This way if it is greater than 10, the TV is on and the lights can be controlled by whomever is watching the TV. They won't go off or turn back to the default until the TV is off and the watts go to less than 10.

Also, you are saying to Add the Remove Delayed Device Action to the ON event except I don't have a Delayed Action in the OFF event. In the OFF event there is a condition of the Light being in the range of 0,0 for 3 minutes. So would this work with that?

[randy]

I want the lights to go off if the TV isn't on. I want the lights to come on when I enter the basement but if someone is watching TV and they have the lights on a different colour or dimmed, I don't want the lights to change to the bright white that they normally come on when entering the room and the TV isn't on. Hope this makes sense.

OK. The first thing you may or may not know, On on a Hue light is setting it to the last level, not to full brightness. If you want a Hue light to full brightness you must set it to 254. How bright do you want the Hue lights to come on with your On Event? If you want them to come on at full brightness have your On Event set them to 254. Add the Remove Delayed Device Action to your On Event, it doesn’t matter the order of the Actions.

Then add one condition to your off event: IF JowiHue Basement is equal to 254 and remove the condition of the TV wattage. This would do the following:

• If the TV is Off and you walk in the room the lights will turn On (to 254). After there has been no motion for 3 minutes, as long as the lights are at full brightness, regardless of whether the TV is on or off, the lights will turn off
• If the TV is on and you Walk in the room, nothing happens. Since the lights are not at full brightness, the off by no motion will not trigger, so the lights will remain wherever they were set
• Then add a third Event to set the Hue lights to TV watching level when the TV is turned on, also making it so that the absence of motion will not turn them off

[pcgirl65]

I want the lights to go off if the TV isn't on. I want the lights to come on when I enter the basement but if someone is watching TV and they have the lights on a different colour or dimmed, I don't want the lights to change to the bright white that they normally come on when entering the room and the TV isn't on. Hope this makes sense.

[randy]

I understand your logic also - I had to read it a couple of times. However, there would never be a time where there would be no motion before turning the TV on as I have a motion sensor right beside the TV.

So... If you walk in the room and the TV is off, the lights will come on. Then you turn the TV on. What do you want the lights to do? If you don’t turn the TV on, what do they do?

[pcgirl65]

OK, this one didn't work. The lights don't turn off.

[teladog01]

So are you saying that the 'cancel the delayed action' goes in the Lights OFF event but before the delayed action? Or is it supposed to go in the Lights ON event?

Yes, I believe for the events as pictured, it would need to be in the OFF event.

Since the On event has the condition "JowiHue Basement has a value of Off", it will not run every time there is new motion detected when the lights are already on. Which means the delayed actions (that could potentially be queueing up from the Off event) would not get canceled each time there is new motion.

I am not saying this is necessarily the best way to implement it (as mentioned there are multiple ways to accomplish this), I am just trying to help you understand why the original events weren't accomplishing the goal. I think it is important to understand the "why" when things don't work as expected.

[logman]

I prefer using my motions to start/restart a timer. When the timer reaches say 3 minutes, then the lights switch off. If new motion is detected before 3 minutes by the motion group, then the timer is reset to 0 and restarted. Additional benefit of this is you can give a warning at say the 2 minute 30 second mark where the lights dim by 25%... Sometimes that's better than sudden darkness in a basement. You can also have a "catch event" at say 15 minutes where if the lights are still on then send another command to turn the lights off. This works good for fringe areas (like a basement or outside light) where sometimes z-wave commands are missed by the target device.

--Barry

[pcgirl65]

This is why you need to add the action to cancel the delayed actions first, then the second action will set up a new delayed action. This way you only ever have one delayed action queued up.

So are you saying that the 'cancel the delayed action' goes in the Lights OFF event but before the delayed action? Or is it supposed to go in the Lights ON event?

[Uncle Michael]

Actually, this is how I decided to try it. Is this correct?

I don't think your first condition can be true when the trigger occurs. One requires a value to have just changed and the other requires that none have changed for 3 minutes.



Perhaps you could change your trigger to a recurring trigger, say once a minute.

[teladog01]

If I were to add a Cancel Delayed Action before the Action of turning the lights off does it work because the rule is flowing down? I don't see how this would work? It would cancel the event of turning the lights off after 3 minutes. Doesn't it work that when all the Conditions are TRUE then the Events start? If the Conditions are FALSE then nothing happens?

Uncle Micheal and rprade have offered other good solutions. But to clear up the specific confusion of the events in the screenshot...

The reason the light turns off even though there is still motion, is that the Off event is actually running every time all three sensors become in a state of "no motion". And each time it runs it is setting up a delayed action to turn off the lights.

So you potentially have many delayed actions could be queueing up if there is intermittent motion periodically within the three minute delay. If you don't clear these delayed actions, they will all still run even though there has potentially been more motion since the delay started.

This is why you need to add the action to cancel the delayed actions first, then the second action will set up a new delayed action. This way you only ever have one delayed action queued up.

I hope that made some sense. It can be tricky to keep track of exactly what is happening with the delayed actions....

[pcgirl65]

I understand your logic also - I had to read it a couple of times. However, there would never be a time where there would be no motion before turning the TV on as I have a motion sensor right beside the TV.