I have my house set up with 2 modes. Day and sleep and am wondering if I'm doing it the most efficient way. The way I have it set up is my motion detector MS16A is set to (set motion state to off after 10 minutes of last sent ON. Then I have 4 triggers setup like this:

Code: Select all

Trigger: "Bedroom Motion" onOffState becomes on
Condition: if myHouseMode is NOT sleep
Actions: brighten "Bedroom Lights" by 100%

Trigger: "Bedroom Motion" onOffState becomes on
Condition: if myHouseMode is sleep
Actions: brighten "Bedroom Lights" by 8%, turn off "Bedroom Motion" (set for 15 seconds)

Trigger: "Bedroom Motion" onOffState becomes on
Condition: always execute
Actions: turn on "Bedroom Lights"

Trigger: "Bedroom Motion" onOffState becomes off
Condition: always execute
Actions: turn off "Bedroom Lights"


This works but I'm wondering if there is a better way to do it. Also I consider adding a 3rd mode for night light levels. Sleep mode is just used to dim the lights quickly at night when sleeping.

I didn't see another way of handing the off delay during the day (10 minutes) and in sleep mode which I want to be about 15 seconds.
I like using the auto off in the motion sensor so I don't send unnecessary on commands when motion is detected.

Would doing this in a script work better? I've thought that if I want a motion sensor to sense motion and turn the lights on for 10 minutes then during that 10 minutes I could disable that motion sensor so RF receiver doesn't have to deal with unnecessary motion detection. This should speed up the motion sensing when there is a lot of movement since it's handled sequentially right?

There are a variety of ways to accomplish most things in Indigo - your way is perfectly reasonable.

If your motion sensors are INSTEON motion sensors, then they aren't sending continual ON commands while detecting motion - they only send an ON when motion is detected and will send a single OFF when motion is no longer detected (based on how long the timeout period you have set on the sensor) so you don't need to worry about flooding RF with signals.

All my sensors are MS16A x10. Matt said some time ago that with scripting you can disable a motion sensor so it doesn't keep sending on command. Was looking for a better cleaner way to handle multiple modes so I have at night low dimming and shorter on times.

There are no X10 commands to disable X10 motion sensors (or any device for that matter) - can you point me to the post where Matt said that?

It wasn't a post. It was by email.

I'm not talking about disabling the actual motion sensor but the responding to it by Indigo since it would delay it doing other things. I'm already able to do that inside of indigo using DISABLE DEVICE in ACTIONS.

I'm going to try some different ways of doing it today and post back if I improve what I have.

Via the Action panel UI (in either a Trigger, Schedule, Action Group, etc.) you can disable (or enable) individual triggers (choose the Type Enable/Disable Trigger). So you could, for example, disable your Indigo triggers for that motion sensor to prevent them from being evaluated at all by Indigo, then you can use the opposite action to enable them later.

Thanks Matt. That's the way I'm doing it now. Seems to help. I put the shortest delay possible on the built in OFF on the motion sensor in indigo. Then if I want it on longer than that, I put a delay in the actions.