Motion sensor association and wifi access

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  • Last Post 05 February 2015
mike@cqsteel.com.au posted this 02 February 2015



I changed my scene to be triggered by the light sense, but again, these sub-nodes dont have the simple dialog box for "turn on" and "tun off". They do have an option for "at any change", "at a certain level", and a couple other things. They don't give the apparent option of using >= or <= etc,="">
Anyhow, since the latest reading on my Light Sense was 48, I set it as my trigger and set the value to be 70.

I set the thing outside and waited. It took nearly ten minutes before it updated, and when it did update the level, it was at 1000 - yet it did NOT trigger my scene.

I know I am close, and will get there, but maybe another nudge from more knowledgable people will be beneficial LOL

NOTE THIS: - these "sub-nodes" created from the defferent senses do NOT have the option at the bottom of the screen to "associate" or check "params".
This may in fact be why they are not working as triggers, because they are obviously not associated with the controller.
Perhaps writing scripts is where these sub-nodes become useful??


Associations in this case are un-needed. Associating your multi-sensor to the USB stick is what gives you those readings in the first place, so as long as you get readings, you are good to go with the associations.

When you set the level to be 70, that would mean it would have to be exactly 70. What you might try is doing a "any level change" and then using a condition. If your condition reads ">=70" then the trigger will fire anytime the light value changes, but the condition will prevent the scene from activating unless the changed value was >=70.

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tnamey posted this 02 February 2015

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. As far as accessing the software with a wifi device you'll have much more flexibility with Android and Tasker.

http://store.incontrolzwave.com/boards/topic/702/tasker-plugin-to-allow-the-use-of-conditions

Ryan-Scott posted this 02 February 2015


Once disassociated though i cannot seem to get my motion sensor to trigger the scene.
I even set motion as a "Trigger" AND as a "Condition", alas to no avail.
I'm sure I am only missing one small step here.
I am no ready yet to write/modify scripts, unless that is an absolute necessity at this time.


You shouldn't need to add any scripts. First, do you know that your motion sensor is reporting motion to InControl properly? Do you see the checkbox inside the UI come on and off for motion events? If so...

Then all you need to do is create a scene with your light and add a single device trigger to it, as in this tutorial.


Secondly, Remote access is very nice, but my primary objective is to be able to use handheld wi-fi devices around the house (iphone, ipad) to access the software in the PC that is running HA.
So far HA works great with internet enabled iphone (whilst the laptop is online as well). However I would likel to use only the wifi capability of the PC and the phone to manage the software.
Is this already possible, or still in the works??
Note: I also bought a Vera 3 as well, mostly because I understood it could work independantly of the internet access. So far I am more happy with the usability of the HA software, but I will give the Vera a shot as well once I am half comfortable with the procedures of the z-stick and Incontrol.


InControl does not require the internet to function. You can use the "Direct Connection" option instead of cloud connect. If you are on local wifi, you'd enter the IP address of your InControl computer as the host/server and port 8711. It can function 100% without internet as long as you are on the same local network.

mike@cqsteel.com.au posted this 03 February 2015

Thanks for the input guys.
I've seen a few of your videos Ryan, and they are very helpful.

My simple scene is "Turn on light".
When I "activate" the scene the light does turn on (and will stay on indefinitely unless I manually turn it off, or turn it off from the UI.

I set it up with a "Time Trigger" and when the time arrives, the light comes on (and again will stay on unless I turn it off)

I deleted the "Time Trigger" and added a "Device Trigger"
I select "Motion" from my list of devices (NOTE: My Aeon 4-1 sensor shows 5 outputs and I have made a separate node from the "Motion" output and of course named it "Motion")

The dialog box is slightly different than the tutorial you pointed me to, but the language seems pretty clear.
It says something like "set trigger when value is at..." and there is a tip below that states "set value at 0 for OFF and 255 for "motion triggered ON".
I set this value at 255 as instructed.

AS a preamble - my Motion detector at idle shows up on the UI with a motion figure of about 40-60 something. Even if I wait it out for a bit, I never see it go to zero.
The "Tick" in the box though is very clear, and when the motion has gone undetected for the 4 minutes, the Tick goes away. I have also changed the params of the Motion node and set the reset time for 5 seconds. When I do this, you can see the Tick is very responsive in the UI and goes away within the 5 seconds.

This tells me that the motion sensor is working, and is sending signals back to the zstick, and the software is reading them correctly.

Now with the "motion" set as a trigger for the scene, I watch the blank Tick box in the UI.
I move my hand near the motion sensor and the Tick pops up in the box, but the light does NOT come on.

When I previously "associated" the light switch and the motion node, the lights would come on when the Tick appeared in the box, BUT it would also go off when the reset time of the sensor was up. This would be good for some applications, but not what I am looking for.
I only want the motion to trigger the scene, not to control the time length that the scene operates. I can use the Tick box on the switch itself to make the lights stay on for X number of seconds, or write other scenes/conditions to turn the light off.

I also tried only setting the motion trigger at a certain level - say 70, rather than the 255 (thinking that the output on the UI typically said 40-60 when little or no motion was happening. This figure did not trigger the scene either.

I notice too that when adding a trigger or a condition there is reference to the GROUP?
The default for triggers seems to be 1, but at some point I thought I saw a condition defaulted at Group 0.
Do these need to correlate to the device (as group 1 I believe)?
I think I tried it both ways to no avail.
More testing tonight, and I'll have another study of some tutorials.

Also noted, the paperwork with the Aeon sensor clearly states that it is meant to be "assocoiated" with devices and that it is intended to send both the "on" and "off" signal to the devices.

Also noted - I have looked into the "rules" and see some potential functions in there, but more complexity as well. I also get a popup that says "rules" will NOT be supported much longer, so I would rather just concentrate on the triggers and conditions for now as I think that will get me where I need to be.

Once I am capable of using the sensor to simply trigger a scene, without completely controlling the timing of the scene, I would like to use the other facets of

Ryan-Scott posted this 03 February 2015


I deleted the "Time Trigger" and added a "Device Trigger"
I select "Motion" from my list of devices (NOTE: My Aeon 4-1 sensor shows 5 outputs and I have made a separate node from the "Motion" output and of course named it "Motion")


This step should be required - you can use the original device as the trigger device instead of making a node from it. Can you try it that way instead and report back?

mike@cqsteel.com.au posted this 03 February 2015

Thanks Ryan

I'll try that when I get home this eve.

Do you still suggest I use the level "255" as recommended in the dialog box for the trigger settings?

Despite the visible sensor settings in the UI looking like somewhere between 40-60, does the motion sensor ONLY put out a signal of EITHER 255, OR 0 ??

I think the numeric values I have seen for the sensor may be misleading me to believe there are different levels of motion? It may be just ON/OFF, and of course I can set the sensativity on the back of the device.

BTW, I am running the sensor on batteries at the moment, but will likely be running them from USB when installed.

Cheers!

Ryan-Scott posted this 03 February 2015

Thanks Ryan

I'll try that when I get home this eve.

Do you still suggest I use the level "255" as recommended in the dialog box for the trigger settings?

Despite the visible sensor settings in the UI looking like somewhere between 40-60, does the motion sensor ONLY put out a signal of EITHER 255, OR 0 ??

I think the numeric values I have seen for the sensor may be misleading me to believe there are different levels of motion? It may be just ON/OFF, and of course I can set the sensativity on the back of the device.

BTW, I am running the sensor on batteries at the moment, but will likely be running them from USB when installed.

Cheers!


Yes, it'll never be anything other than 0 or 255. I'd be curious to see a screen shot of where the 40-60 value shows up just to make sure it's not a bug or something.

mike@cqsteel.com.au posted this 03 February 2015

Cool and Thanks!

I'll snap a pic of the details I am referring to and send it to your email.
It's the box of info below the device icon when I click on the device in the UI.
It says
battery = 88%
5? = 47
Luminoscity = 143
Humidity = 43%
Temp = 26 c

I only assume that the "5" represents motion, as it's the only facet of the device without an obvious name.
I never see this figure (the 47)rise or fall in real time. It is usually somewhere between 41 and 67 or so.
In fact, none of these figures seem to feed abck in real time. That's whay I suspect perhaps the params that are set to 720 seconds may be the feedback timing of all the facets.

Cheers

mike@cqsteel.com.au posted this 03 February 2015

Success at last!
Thanks for the tip Ryan

I bought a 4-1 multi sensor because I envision using the different senses as trigger or consditions.

My first mistake was this - I broke the sensor down into multiple nodes (one just for MOTION)
This new MOTION node was under the guise of a "multilevel sensor" and the feedback was a number around 45-67, NOT a 255 or a 0 as expected from a Motion Sensor.
When I realised my MOTION node was still listed as a multilevel sensor, I changed it to a motion detector. That is afterall what I am meant to do with it.
Now, as a "Motion Detector" it showed the tick box for "Tripped/Open", just like the parent node that it came from.
The next problem though was this.....when the actual motion sensor reset itself, the TICK would NOT go away in the box of the created sub node. The TICK DID go away though in the parent motion sensor.

The created sub sensor is the one that has odd options for setting the trigger, Not the simple "Trigger motion ON" and "Trigger motion OFF"

I deleted the sub sensor that I had created and set the primary 4 in 1 sensor as the trigger.
This time the trigger options looked like the tutorial posted by Ryan.

And, this time when the motion was sensed, it did trigger my scene (turn lights on).
Also, when the motion sensor reset itself, it did NOT turn the lights back off.

This is the affect I was after, so the timing of the lights is not directly associated with the ON and OFF of the sensor.

I also wrote a scene that used the 4 in 1 sensor to trigger the lights OFF when motion turned off.

Now with both scenes in place, it appears that the lights are directly associated with the motion sensor, BUT I can use conditions of all sorts, and other scenes as well to time WHEN the lights turn off.
As well as just setting the automatic delay of the lights themselves (Tick box for turn off after X seconds)

This gets me over the first hurdle, and now I am pretty comfortable with the basics,
However.......... I still intend to use the other senses from the 4 in 1 sensor.
Whether I call it a Motion Detector, or a Multilevel sensor, there is a box with details showing the battery level, light level, motion level, humidity level and temp level.(note that if I classify it as a mutilevel sensor, the TICK box for motion dissappears. When I classify it as a motion detector the TICK box comes back)
It is from this box that I created the sub node for Motion ONLY - that of course did not work properly for motion.
Not giving up, I created a sub node for the Light level and called it "Light Sense". I left this newly created sub-node listed as a multilevel sensor.
NOTE: although I did not time it, it appears that these sensor levels are only updated about every 10 minutes. I am sure these params can be adjusted, but I haven't identified them directly just yet.

I changed my scene to be triggered by the light sense, but again, these sub-nodes dont have the simple dialog box for "turn on" and "tun off". They do have an option for "at any change", "at a certain level", and a couple other things. They don't give the apparent option of using >= or <= etc,="">
Anyhow, since the latest reading on my Light Sense was 48, I set it as my trigger and set the value to be 70.

I set the thing outside and waited. It took nearly ten minutes before it updated, and when it did update the level, it was at 1000 - yet it did NOT trigger my scene.

I know I am close, and will get there, but maybe another nudge from more knowledgable people will be beneficial LOL

N

Ryan-Scott posted this 05 February 2015



I changed my scene to be triggered by the light sense, but again, these sub-nodes dont have the simple dialog box for "turn on" and "tun off". They do have an option for "at any change", "at a certain level", and a couple other things. They don't give the apparent option of using >= or <= etc,="">
Anyhow, since the latest reading on my Light Sense was 48, I set it as my trigger and set the value to be 70.

I set the thing outside and waited. It took nearly ten minutes before it updated, and when it did update the level, it was at 1000 - yet it did NOT trigger my scene.

I know I am close, and will get there, but maybe another nudge from more knowledgable people will be beneficial LOL

NOTE THIS: - these "sub-nodes" created from the defferent senses do NOT have the option at the bottom of the screen to "associate" or check "params".
This may in fact be why they are not working as triggers, because they are obviously not associated with the controller.
Perhaps writing scripts is where these sub-nodes become useful??


Associations in this case are un-needed. Associating your multi-sensor to the USB stick is what gives you those readings in the first place, so as long as you get readings, you are good to go with the associations.

When you set the level to be 70, that would mean it would have to be exactly 70. What you might try is doing a "any level change" and then using a condition. If your condition reads ">=70" then the trigger will fire anytime the light value changes, but the condition will prevent the scene from activating unless the changed value was >=70.

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