Convincing hidden door sensor and dimmers to peacefully co-exist

[maidez]

I use a hidden door sensor to automatically turn on a light in a hallway when a door from the garage is open. Like many others, I've learned to use these sensors as controllers in scenes, rather than as program triggers, because of the unacceptable delay in turning on lights when used in a program. Ideally, the light would only be turned on automatically when it is dark, and would never affect a light that has been turned on manually.

 

I don't believe that there is a way to remove a controller from a scene programmatically (e.g. not have the sensor do anything during daytime hours), so I approximate what I want by scheduling programs that use "Adjust Scene" to set the on level to 100% at night, and 0% during the day. This gets me almost where I need to be, except for the case where someone has decided to turn the light on manually. If the door is opened during the day when the light is already on, the sensor will dutifully trigger the scene, which turns off the lights, because their level had been adjusted to 0% during the daytime housekeeping task.

 

The only thing I can think of to turn this sensor into a no-op during the day is to have a program adjust the scene to the current light level every time the dimmer is adjusted. When the light is turned on or faded up manually during the day, the scene would be adjusted to 100%, and then when the light is turned off manually, or due to a timer program, the scene would be re-adjusted back to 0%. This seems like an awful lot of 'Adjust Scene' usage, and frequently when I find myself jumping through this many programmatic hoops, I learn that I'm missing something obvious.

 

So -  is this my only alternative, or is there a more elegant way to have the sensor co-exist with manual operation of the switch while also accounting for the time of day?

[Jimbo.Automates]

Yes, that is the best option I know of currently, and it is a pain. There is a way to do this coming soon in 5.0 alpha which will allow it to be set to ignore in the adjust scene.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[stusviews]

Add that the light is not already on as a program condition.

[maidez]

Jimbo - thanks, I guess I'll look to rework this when I finally decide to move to 5.0. I've been waiting for it to become official, but maybe I'll end up going to an alpha or beta release if I get impatient.

 

Stu - If I'm understanding you correctly, evaluating whether the light is already on isn't an option, since the light comes on as a controller -> responder relationship to avoid the delays I incurred when having the sensor trigger a program that turns on the light. I've used programs with motion sensors, because the program delay isn't really perceptible, since you're not really sure when the motion detector should fire. With the door sensors, the program delay is very noticeable, and I find myself getting through the door and well into the hallway before the light goes on.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I guess I know what I have to do, even if I don't really like it.