Is it dark?

[johnquirk]

Hello,
I have a pretty simple X-10 set up, lights only, no appliances (yet). I would like to be able to check if it's dark before I switch on the lights. Does anyone know of an X-10 light sensor, or some other way of telling Hopmeseer that it is dark or light?

I was thinking of something like a motion sensor which can transmit a command that Homeseer will detect to toggle a HS device to on or off for light or dark, then I can check the status of this device before sending out a command?

Ta

JQ

[Rupp]

johnquirk,
A motion sensor will work perfectly.
Also don't forget that HS has built in sunrise ans sunset capabilities that are based on your lat/long. This works pretty good unless it's real cloudy and it will be pretty dark before the lights come on in this case.

[johnquirk]

Hi Rupp,
When you say it'll work perfectly, what would I need to do?

Thanks

John

[Rupp]

John,
Get the motion sensor set up lets say A1. Then you set up an event that is triggered on A2 off (I believe its an off when it does not sense light. This would be easy enough to test. Simply set up the sensor and cover it with your hand and watch the HomeSeer log to see what is sent.) The dusk to dawn sensor is always 1 more than the house and unit code on the motion sensor. In this even simply drag the devices you want turned on when the event fires.

[johnquirk]

So are you saying that there is a specific motion sensor that will also do light sensing? If so I want one. The sensors I have at the moment don;t do that...

JQ

[Rupp]

John,
Which motion sensors do you have?

These are the one's that do and if you join X10 spamming email you can get deals like 3 for $20 at least every other week.

http://www.x10.com/products/x10_ms13a.htm

[johnquirk]

My motion sensors are dum Visionic ones. I use Comfort (www.comfort.org.uk) as my alarm system, and it talks X-10 when the motion sensors are triggered.

[johnquirk]

Yeah, I recognise those now. They're not quite what I was looking for. What I want is something that will send out A1-On when it's light and A1-OFF when it's not, then I can change the status of a device and query that when I check to turn lights on or otherwise.

I guess I'll have to look at getting Comfort to do this. I can connect a light sensor circuit across one of the analogue inputs and have it generate the X-10, then homeseer can pick that up...

Thanks

Q

[Rupp]

John,
That's exactly what these motion sensors do except it would be A2 when its light and A2 off when its dark.

[WayneW]

One other way is to use an X-10 Sundowner, which is basically a mini controller with a built in photo cell. You could put one of htese in each area you want to sense light. One drawback is that they do not give analog output, it is is either dark or not. But you can adjust the threshold with a knob on the bottom, I believe.

http://www.automatedoutlet.com/custo...&cat=19&page=1
http://www.x10.com/products/x10_sd533.htm

[JimCirillo]

And don't forget that once you sense it's dark, and turn on a light, it's no longer dark...

[wpiman]

Why not create a virtual device called "dark" which turns on at sundown and off at sunup?

[HardwareHacker]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by wpiman:
Why not create a virtual device called "dark" which turns on at sundown and off at sunup? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is what I do
It works for me

[Rupp]

Why would/do you create a virtual device for something that HS exposes via its scripting interface???

[DC]

You don't necessarily need a virtual device to indicate night time. You can just add a "Time is night time" condition to your events (along with any other conditions you already have).

Of course, if you truly want to know when it's DARK, the HS sunset/sunrise times won't work perfectly. It doesn't get dark until several minutes after sunset and it gets light several minutes before sunrise.