Multisensor 6 problems

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  • Last Post 07 March 2017
Dignan17 posted this 09 February 2017

I just got a Multisensor 6, added it to my network, and changed the type from motion sensor to MultiLevelSensor (I'm assuming that's right...), and did an auto configure. Now I'm really confused.

Mainly, I'm puzzled by the readings on the sensor. I have temperature and humidity and stuff like that, but I also appear to have FIVE motion sensors listed on there for some reason. 3 of them show a value of 0 and two show a value of 255. Walking in front of the sensor doesn't appear to change these values.

Actually, the values don't really seem to change. I just turned on the light in the room where the sensor is, changing it from pitch black to illuminated by two 100W bulbs, and "luminance" still has a value of 0.

What's going on?

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Dignan17 posted this 09 February 2017

Quick update:

It looks like the luminance sensor is reporting back...but it takes about 10 minutes for the value to change. And even with those lights at full brightness, the value it shows is 33. That doesn't sound right. Is it?   

rscott posted this 09 February 2017

The device will continue to function if you leave it as a MotionSensor too. Plus, you'll still get other features out of it like room occupancy detection and the like.

You can try to run it through the auto configure, that may adjust settings more to your liking. As far as report times, those can be customized using the "Params" button. The manual lists out the parameters to use - I think param 111 is the one you are interested in, but read through the manual to be sure.

 

weidnerj posted this 09 February 2017

Even though you have bright lights, it really works best with sunlight, so 33 lux probalby is right.  Also your motion sensor will trip, but can't recall exact time but there there is a 2 or 4 minute reset time (that is confiigurable) once tripped that no longer will register motion until the time has completed.

Dignan17 posted this 10 February 2017

Ok, I guess the part I'm confused about is how quickly the server sees the motion trigger. Is that sent immediately, and all the others are sent on intervals? I understand that the sensor waits after triggering to trigger again, but what I don't get is that when I walk in front of the thing for the first time, Axial doesn't indicate anything... How do I use the motion sensor to turn a light on?

cowinger posted this 10 February 2017

Dignan17,

You can use the tiny icons on the right side next to the different names. Trip the MS and watch the values next to the names. One or more of them will go from 0 to 255 and after 2-4 minutes back to 0. Click on the little icon (I use the icon that has either the name 'motion' or 'security') and give it a name. Make sure the one you use returns to 0. Wait for it to appear as a device. Highlight the new device and change it to a motion sensor. In your scene use this device as your trigger to turn on your light.

Hope this helps.

Dignan17 posted this 10 February 2017

I thought the same thing. But I watched those for changes and none of them did. When I move in front of the sensor, nothing happens at all. I switched the sensor back to "Motion Sensor" and it doesn't indicate motion when I move in front of it. I set up a Room with just that sensor and a light, and walking in front of it does nothing to the light. I thought it was supposed to turn on if it sensed occupancy (I checked both boxes on the room).

I'm getting a little frustrated with Axial lately...

cowinger posted this 10 February 2017

I am assuming that you have done an 'auto configure' and 'association' with this sensor. They are necessary in getting a list of values to show up. Make sure the 'association' shows the usb stick selected. Also make sure you have gone offline and back online with the server. You probably have tried to exclude and re-include and just try leaving it at whatever it comes in as for now.

You said you set up a room with the sensor and light. You will need to set up a new scene.

Device: choose that light and set it to on
Trigger: If it is a multisensor then set to level 255 or if you have it as a motion sensor then select 'detects motion'
Conditions: none

With all that there should be a response from axial when motion is detected.

weidnerj posted this 11 February 2017

Leave it as a motion sensor.  Then create a rule to turn on the light when motion sensor is activated, but make sure you also turn off the light.  I use turn light on, timer to wait, then turn light off all in one rule.  Or you could also do two rules, turn light on on motion, and another rule stating when the motion sensor resets to turn off the light. 

The reset time on the your device is configurable, you have to use params function to send to your device to change the default time.  But I really won't worry about it unless you plan on having the light time out less than the 2 or 4 minutes.  What I mean by that is if the timer reset is 2 or 4 minutes, but you leave the light on for 5 minutes, it doesn't matter because you only want the light on for a total of 5 minutes.

Dignan17 posted this 13 February 2017

Yes, I've left it as a motion sensor, but I was under the impression that the "restore power when occupied" checkbox was all I needed on the room screen. Why do I also need to create a scene? This is very unclear in the software.

Also, weidnerj, I thought rules were depricated. There's only scenes with conditions and triggers now, aren't there? And again, I thought the checkboxes on the room screen were what handled all of this...

cowinger posted this 13 February 2017

Dignan17,

I think you might be missing this step. Check it out and see if this will help. Also below is a link to that page where the info came from.

To allow the room manager to power a device on or off automatically, double click the device from the devices screen and tick the box that says "Allow room manager use."

http://docs.incontrolha.com/home/rooms

Hope this helps.

Dignan17 posted this 13 February 2017

Nope, I did that already.

cowinger posted this 13 February 2017

OK, I got mine to work. Here is what I did.

1. create an empty room
2. tick both boxes at the top and put a 1 in the timeout minutes box, go offline and back online
3. add your motion sensor and light to the room
4. Take the server offline and back online again
5. Wait until 'Occupancy Timer' reads 'Unoccupied'
6. Trip the sensor, light should go on, leave room (if you stay in the room it will not time out and never go to "unoccupied"  until you leave which starts the countdown to turning light off)
7. 'Occupancy Timer' should read 'Occupied'  -  time out how long it takes until light goes off  -  see step 8.
8. Light will turn off if no motion for the time you put in the box added together with the time the sensor is set to send an off. So if you have a 1 in the upper box and the sensor is set to 3 minutes then the light will go off in 4 minutes.

Hope this works for you.

Dignan17 posted this 13 February 2017

Ok, it looks like my motion sensor is finally working. I was able to see it trigger in Axial a little after I walked in front of it. But it didn't turn the light in the room on. It seems wasteful to create a scene for this too. But I'm not sure how it knows what level to turn the light onto without it...

Dignan17 posted this 13 February 2017

Ok, looks like I finally have it working. I manually turned the light on and then left the room and waited. The occupancy ended and turned the light off. Then when I returned it turned the light back on again. I guess it returns to whatever state it was before. I'll have to see what happens if I turn the light off before the occupancy ends...

cowinger posted this 13 February 2017

We must have crossed paths. If you have it working then you can ignore the stuff below. Glad to hear it is working!

You may have to create another device. Highlight your multisensor and on the right side you should see a value called "motion". To the left of that is a small icon. Click on that icon and give it a name to correspond with motion. Wait for that device to appear and change it to a motion sensor. Erase the one you have in that room and put this one in it's place. Go offline and back online and try again to trip the motion sensor  -  remember to wait until room says it is "Unoccupied" first before you trip the sensor.

Dignan17 posted this 14 February 2017

No, I didn't need another device, the motion sensor was working finally.

I ended up creating a scene to turn the lights in the room on using the motion sensor. As I suspected, if the light is triggered on and then is turned off manually any time before occupancy ends, or even afterward it's turned on and off without triggering motion, the next time I walk in the room the light won't turn on. It keys off the last state. I can understand why this is, though.

Anyway, all is good now.

nelis249 posted this 17 February 2017

@cowinger Not really sure I understand the Rooms feature. Scenes would perform the same function, lights on with motion, lights off without motion, and seem easier to understand.

cowinger posted this 17 February 2017

nelis249,

Dignan17 was trying to figure out how to use the room feature to turn on and off a light using motion. I was merely trying to help me get it to work. I did suggest the scene in an earlier post. He then decided to use a scene instead so in the end he got his scene to work and the room idea was forgotten.

Hope this straightens it out.

Dignan17 posted this 18 February 2017

Not quite. I'm using a scene to turn the lights on, and the room feature to handle occupancy detection. It works better than just a scene.

cowinger posted this 18 February 2017

Well I am glad you have found a fix for your situation. Also glad that there is no more confusion.

rscott posted this 24 February 2017

I actually do this too - if I want a light on, I use a scene to get it on. I let the room manager turn things off when the room is no longer occupied. 

Also for what it's worth, Aeon Labs has "motion sensing" turned off by default (why would they do that?!). Unless you turn it on by configuring the param, or use auto configure, it won't work out of the box.

Dignan17 posted this 25 February 2017

Interesting! Thanks for the heads up. I ran the auto configure and restarted the software a few times (for other reasons) and everything seems to be working fine now.

Ryan, am I correct in concluding that the "Occupancy timeout minutes" figure is added onto the motion sensor timeout? It seems like the occupancy timeout doesn't start until the motion sensor resets and doesn't still detect motion.

rscott posted this 25 February 2017

That's right; once the sensor resets, the timeout starts to count-down and then turn off the lights once it hits 0.

nelis249 posted this 04 March 2017

With the multi-sensor, is there anyway to trigger off another sensor property than motion? For example, I have a sensor in my bathroom on the cieling (primarly for triggering lights) but I want to add an additional scene event to turn the exhaust fan on when humidity reaches a certain point.

rscott posted this 04 March 2017

You can create a new device by clicking the icon next to the humidity reading. You can then use that device to trigger scenes.

Dignan17 posted this 04 March 2017

I'm approaching the end of my patience with Axial.

I ordered another Aeon Labs Multisensor 6. I placed it in my laundry room. I set up a scene and room just like I did in my garage. The scene turns the light on, and after a specified amount of time, the room occupancy monitor turns the light off.

But it's not working.

The scene turns the light on, but the room occupancy does not change, so the light stays on because there's no countdown to start.

I'm really frustrated by all these weird behaviors of the software. I set everything up exactly like I did before. The only thing I can think of that's messing Axial up is that prior to installing this second motion sensor, the laundry room light was part of the garage occupancy scene/room setup. But I removed it before I set the laundry room scene/light up.

I've turned the server off and on again, restarted the computer, whatever I could think of.

I've also noticed that when the server restarts, it takes forever for the other stats on the sensors to fill in. Like, dozens of minutes.

rscott posted this 04 March 2017

Can you verify that you did the following:

  • added the laundry room light to it's own room
  • added the motion sensor to the same room
  • set the motion sensor as a device of type "MotionSensor"
  • double click the laundry room light, check "allow room manager use"
  • in the room setup, make sure that "Enable Room Occupancy Management" is checked

If you've done all that, toss us a support ticket and we can give you some more personalized support to troubleshoot the problem.

For the other sensor stats, that's how sensors are designed. Axial can't poll them because they are battery powered, so it just has to wait for the sensors to send the stats. Most of the time the default behavior for the sensors is to send them hourly (though it depends on the manufacturer). In almost all cases, you can change how each sensor works to get it to send more frequently but this will be at the cost of battery life. What happens is when you restart, Axial "forgets" all the values that were sent previously and can only show them again once that sensor decides to communicate with the system again.

Dignan17 posted this 04 March 2017

All of that is correct. I've submitted a ticket.

nelis249 posted this 04 March 2017

Sweeeeeet (minion voice).

cowinger posted this 04 March 2017

The only two things I can think of are:

1. Make sure the motion sensing is turned on by way of the parameter (per previous post)

2. The value for the "occupancy timeout minutes" I believe must be >=1

Might be repeats but all I can think of.

Dignan17 posted this 04 March 2017

Both those things are correct. If the motion weren't enabled, the scene wouldn't be able to turn the light on, no?

And the occupancy timeout is set to 2 minutes.

cowinger posted this 05 March 2017

My bad, you are correct it would not turn on unless that was done. Is the sensor being re-triggered? By a flickering light or through light from a window? If you move the sensor from that room to the same room your other sensor is in and set it next to the other one does it work then? Does the light go on in the other room and then off after no motion and the timeout?

Also, does it go to "occupancy" when there is motion detected and then to "no occupancy" (not sure of actual wording) when the sensor times out and then it should count down 2 min and shut off.

Dignan17 posted this 05 March 2017

I've submitted a help ticket and Ryan is helping me with this.

The room is completely isolated with no windows, and I'm closing the door when I leave. There is no movement when I'm gone, and the room never switches to "Occupied," which is clearly the problem, and I'm not sure why. The other room I have this set up in worked fine before and works fine now, and it was set up the exact same way.

Dignan17 posted this 07 March 2017

So at support's request I went off/online again...and it works now. I have no idea why, even though I went off/online several times before, and even restarted the whole computer, but it works now. Thanks everyone for their help, especially Axial support.

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