Motion Sensor Timer

[texas3622]

I have 2 motion sensors that are connected to my home security system that are interegrated into Control4. I would like to program them so that they turn on lights when they detect motion but turn off lights if no motion detected for 5 min. What is the correct way to set up a timer agent? I have tried to set it up so that if motion is detected within the 5 min that restarts the timer and the lights turn off only after the timer stops (or should it be when it expires???). There is no "occupancy hold mode" for these. I have tried many different ways but nothing has worked.

[wingzz]

Just reset the timer on motion and on timer expire turn the lights off

[Cyknight]

On motion detected:

RESET timer {do not use start - reset = set to 0 AND start, the START command is usually used to continue a timer you used STOP on, STOP being more a pause that holds the timer on the last known value}

Turn on lights

When timer expires {so indeed not on stop}

Turn off lights

Timer of course needs to be non-repeating

[texas3622]

Thanks.

[LSDave]

Or get the free motion sensor driver from Recluse that has timer functionality built in!

[Cyknight]

AFAIK there's no such thing on their website - and I just checked. That said Recluse and Alan as an individual made a LOT of drivers so if you know where to point me to I'm interested in checking it out.

Adding a driver however would require Pro, the above just HE provided the motion is already in.

[texas3622]

Has anyone had experience with the card acess motion sensors? Are they any good?

[Cyknight]

They work perfectly fine and have a number of adjustments you can't do with a normal motion, have settings that mean less programming in some situations plus they are light level sensing for added options.

[texas3622]

Thanks. I just got a few and they are nice. There seems to be a lag for triggering events.

[Cyknight]

Check the settings for that - there is a small delay (for one before it detects wich is settable somewhere in the driver if I remember, then transmits) but is shouldn't be much.

[CFUG]

I am experiencing not so good results with CA motions used on timed lighting. After initial motion triggers light, subsequent motion does not reset the timer. CA is set to 5s occup. hold, timer is 1min. What is going wrong?

[CFUG]

Nevermind, I'll just jack the occup. hold up to two min. and forget the C4 timer routine.

[ILoveC4]

Nevermind, I'll just use jack the occup. hold up to two min. and forget the C4 timer routine.

That's what I do.

[CFUG]

I would like to figure out why the hold time 5s against a 1m timer would interfere with motion detection triggering during a C4 timer interval- makes no sense to me... All I need to do is delay timer expiration if motion is detected while timer is running. One thing I haven't verified is triggering another light while timer is running. That would rule-out any screwy situation with the CA device (which I am not thrilled with anyway).

[N8Ball]

For anyone interested, I was running into this problem as well and solved it with the following:

• When motion is detected --> Start Timer
• When Timer Starts --> Activate appropriate Lighting Scene
• When Timer Expires --> If Motion Sensor is Open...Reset Timer, If Motion Sensor is Closed...turn off lights

Seems to work great for me.

FYI - Make sure your Occupancy Hold Time isn't set crazy long...or the Timer will get Reset even though you may have left the room minutes before, then you would have to wait the entire Timer length again.

[OMF]

I know this is an old topic, but came across a situation that I couldn't program in a nice way.

1. DS2 motion sensor senses motion.
2. Turns on outdoor lights for 5 minutes.
3. When the timer expires, turns off the outdoor lights.

The challenge starts when it is night time. One of the lights is inside the motion sensing area that cannot be excluded, and when the light goes off, it triggers a false positive motion event, that turns on the light again... tried to ramp the lights from 100% to 0% over an extended time (up to 300 s), didn't help, it just goes into an endless loop.

Any smart ideas?

[drmark12pa]

On ‎7‎/‎3‎/‎2013 at 8:40 AM, Cyknight said:

On motion detected:

RESET timer {do not use start - reset = set to 0 AND start, the START command is usually used to continue a timer you used STOP on, STOP being more a pause that holds the timer on the last known value}

Turn on lights

When timer expires {so indeed not on stop}

Turn off lights

Timer of course needs to be non-repeating

If I use, RESET and then START timer does that work as well?  or does RESET put the timer back to full value and then start the countdown?

[Cyknight]

5 hours ago, drmark12pa said:

If I use, RESET and then START timer does that work as well?  or does RESET put the timer back to full value and then start the countdown?

Depends on what youre trying to make work. In general yes, that works - but the START command isn't needed.

[Craig P]

There's an Occupancy driver on DriverCentral that removes the need for programming timers, it makes life a lot easier to program occupancy:

https://www.drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/lighting/homemation-occupancy-driver/