Motion-triggered lighting in home theater

[ISY Newbie]

I need a hint with this.

I'd like to program motion-triggered lighting in the home theater.

The tricky part is that I want the lights to be switched on only when people first enter the area. From then on, the lights shouldn't be triggered by motion from people watching a movie inside. Is this achievable?

[jec6613]

I did this with Polyglot and harmony. Motion normally works, but once the theater is in theater mode, motion sensing is disabled. 

[lilyoyo1]

35 minutes ago, ISY Newbie said:

I need a hint with this.

I'd like to program motion-triggered lighting in the home theater.

The tricky part is that I want the lights to be switched on only when people first enter the area. From then on, the lights shouldn't be triggered by motion from people watching a movie inside. Is this achievable?

Short answer no. Motion sensors can't tell what you are doing/trying to do at any given moment. The best you can hope for is to position the sensor in a way that it only picks up movement at the door way.

If you are using something like example above then it's possible

What I did for mine was put a kpl outside of the room (the switches are outside) with different scenes in it. Watch TV, watch movie, watch firestick, etc. Depending on what I choose, it automatically sets the room up the way I want. For example, my watch movie will drop down the projector and screen, turn on the lights and set an auto off. Hitting play on the remote will also trigger the lights off

[larryllix]

53 minutes ago, ISY Newbie said:

I need a hint with this.

I'd like to program motion-triggered lighting in the home theater.

The tricky part is that I want the lights to be switched on only when people first enter the area. From then on, the lights shouldn't be triggered by motion from people watching a movie inside. Is this achievable?

I think this technique could do your job. Read down where the levels are modified for different times.

 

[oberkc]

You might find a way to position the motion sensor to trigger when people are entering a room, but I am skeptical that a sensor so positioned  could differentiate between entering and leaving.

[larryllix]

4 hours ago, oberkc said:

You might find a way to position the motion sensor to trigger when people are entering a room, but I am skeptical that a sensor so positioned  could differentiate between entering and leaving.

Have to detect the current action of the a/v equipment and adjust the MS scene accordingly. Modern A/V equipment makes that fairly easy in many cases.

The MS doesn't differentiate the level of lighting, your ISY does and modifies the Insteon scene.

[oberkc]

53 minutes ago, larryllix said:

Have to detect the current action of the a/v equipment and adjust the MS scene accordingly. Modern A/V equipment makes that fairly easy in many cases.

The MS doesn't differentiate the level of lighting, your ISY does and modifies the Insteon scene.

???  Not following this.  While all may be true, I am not sure what this has to do with a motion sensor detecting people entering or leaving a room.

[larryllix]

17 minutes ago, oberkc said:

???  Not following this.  While all may be true, I am not sure what this has to do with a motion sensor detecting people entering or leaving a room.

ISY controls the response of the lights by controlling the scene response from the MS, as desired. MSes have no logic or intelligence.

When the movie isn't playing the MS-->Lights are set to full brilliance level for human entrance/exit lighting.
When the movie starts playing ISY dims the lights to 0 to 15%, dark red, blue, white, whatever and sets the scene response to the same levels.
   (unfortunately colours would not be a scene enabled response from Insteon equipment yet).
When motion is detected, during the movie, lights would respond with exactly the same levels, already set, and no change would be seen by humans.
When the movie is stopped the scene would be set back to entrance/exit the room levels, probably with a long ramp up not to dazzle the  humans eyes suddenly. 

These statuses are available in ISY via drop-ins in Kodi players since about 2015, and many A/V receivers via Nodeservers in Polyglot now. If not available could be done with a a battery powered Insteon MiniRemote, or even a double tap on a Insteon SwitchLinc, a second well placed MS and a hand gesture, an Alexa Echo ("Alexa...turn On movie mode"), or too many other methods to mention.

Even a well placed single MS can detect people standing up but not sitting down. I use them in my bedrooms and they only trigger with feet up in thr air or when we stand up. White vinyl tape and lots of trial and error help.

[oberkc]

9 minutes ago, larryllix said:

ISY controls the response of the lights by controlling the scene response from the MS, as desired. MSes have no logic or intelligence.

When the movie isn't playing the MS-->Lights are set to full brilliance level for human entrance/exit lighting.
When the movie starts playing ISY dims the lights to 0 to 15%, dark red, blue, white, whatever and sets the scene response to the same levels.
   (unfortunately colours would not be a scene enabled response from Insteon equipment yet).
When motion is detected, during the movie, lights would respond with exactly the same levels, already set, and no change would be seen by humans.
When the movie is stopped the scene would be set back to entrance/exit the room levels, probably with a long ramp up not to dazzle the  humans eyes suddenly. 

These statuses are available in ISY via drop-ins in Kodi players since about 2015, and many A/V receivers via Nodeservers in Polyglot now. If not available could be done with a a battery powered Insteon MiniRemote, or even a double tap on a Insteon SwitchLinc, a second well placed MS and a hand gesture, an Alexa Echo ("Alexa...turn On movie mode"), or too many other methods to mention.

Even a well placed single MS can detect people standing up but not sitting down. I use them in my bedrooms and they only trigger with feet up in thr air or when we stand up. White vinyl tape and lots of trial and error help.

Again, while all may be true, I thought this post was simply about triggering lighting via motion sensor.  I was only responding to the request to switch on lights "when people first enter the area".  Perhaps I misunderstood the original request, but it seemed to be limited to motion-triggered lighting.

I quote the following snippets:

9 hours ago, ISY Newbie said:

I'd like to program motion-triggered lighting in the home theater.

 

9 hours ago, ISY Newbie said:

The tricky part is that I want the lights to be switched on only when people first enter the area.

 

[larryllix]

14 minutes ago, oberkc said:

Again, while all may be true, I thought this post was simply about triggering lighting via motion sensor.  I was only responding to the request to switch on lights "when people first enter the area".  Perhaps I misunderstood the original request, but it seemed to be limited to motion-triggered lighting.

I quote the following snippets:

 

 

The lights would always be triggered by the motion detector that is Insteon scene connected to the lights.
ISY can control the outcome of any MS to lighting scene, as shown in the original link I supplied. Off, or maybe 1%,  should be an option but I have never tested it, only about 10% levels and 100% levels in the same scene, from the same bulbs.

Read the thread I linked to.

[oberkc]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

Read the thread I linked to.

I am quite familiar with the thread you linked to.  I am obviously not being clear nor, I doubt, helpful to the OP.  Nothing you have said or linked to is unfamiliar to me.  I just do not think it addresses the stated desires of the OP.  Signing off here.

[larryllix]

14 minutes ago, oberkc said:

I am quite familiar with the thread you linked to.  I am obviously not being clear nor, I doubt, helpful to the OP.  Nothing you have said or linked to is unfamiliar to me.  I just do not think it addresses the stated desires of the OP.  Signing off here.

hmmmmm. Not sure how else to put it. This may be too complicated for a newbie ISY programmer, but in principle....

"I want the lights to be switched on only when people first enter the area. From then on, the lights shouldn't be triggered by motion from people watching a movie inside."

This would not stop the MS from switching the lights completely, only stop the lights from switching to the entry/exit levels.

1) A direct link from the MS to the lights (Insteon scene) to  be controlled would be created.
2) When the MS sees motion the lights go On 100%. (being seated)
3) A program in ISY is triggered by the MS 'switched On' signal and times out sending a lights Off signal.
4) Another program senses a different mechanism to trigger it and changes the Scene 1) to low lighting settings, and sets the lighting to a very low movie watching level.
5) Any motion detected turns the lights on at the same level they already are at and the humans don't see any change.
6) The movie session is over and the same mechanism as 4) changes the Scene 1) back to 100% lighting settings and ramps the lighting back up to 100%
7) The same program as 3) times out and switches off the lights after all motion has stopped. (people have left the theatre room)

Many different mechanisms could be used to control the program 4) which controls the Scene 1).
The MS always controls the lighting On cycle. ISY controls how brightly and when the lights turn off. Two ISY programs plus any other programs needed to detect the control mechanism signal.

Is that making any more sense?
 

[oberkc]

15 minutes ago, larryllix said:

Is that making any more sense?

No.  My perceptions are that the OP wants the program to trigger from a motion sensor and ONLY a motion sensor.  I did not think he wanted a program that was trigger by a motion sensor AND and other "different mechanisms".  I do not perceive that there are other such mechanisms in play here.

But...ISY newbie has not returned and only he can clarify.  

[lilyoyo1]

I agree with Oberkc. Why muddy the waters when we don't know what he has, proficiency level with programming, or desire to spend what it takes if he doesn't have necessary equipment. 

[larryllix]

5 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I agree with Oberkc. Why muddy the waters when we don't know what he has, proficiency level with programming, or desire to spend what it takes if he doesn't have necessary equipment. 

Sure but his OP was "I'd like to program motion-triggered lighting in the home theater. "

Nothing was mentioned or implied about  only using an MS. After I get my new MS IIs masked off I will post a photo of how to do it for the less program savvy.

[lilyoyo1]

16 hours ago, larryllix said:

Sure but his OP was "I'd like to program motion-triggered lighting in the home theater. "

Nothing was mentioned or implied about  only using an MS. After I get my new MS IIs masked off I will post a photo of how to do it for the less program savvy.

I think you should. Especially for cases like this, it would help

[apostolakisl]

I don't have any motion sensors in my movie theater.  I use the light switch conveniently located at the doorway to turn the lights on when I walk into the room.  From there, the lights are controlled by harmony remote.  Though most other learning remotes would work, just that the harmony is easy to configure since it has a node server for ISY.  Anyway, I have programmed various situations within the harmony to either dim the lights are raise the lights as I desire for whatever state I have put the theater into (using the remote of course).  With a more generic remote, you would need to have the ISY within ir range and use the ir output from the remote to tell ISY what to do to the lights.  This would require that ISY is in ir range of the movie theater.  Otherwise, you might buy one of the wireless ir repeaters I see on ebay.  I have no idea how well they work, but the description fits the job at hand.

Now, if you wanted to use a motion sensor, then you would need to trigger an ISY program to write the links to the light switch when you want it linked to the MS, then another program to unwrite the links when you don't.  There are not difficult programs to write.  Again, you would probably use your remote control to tell ISY when to run which program.

The key in both cases is getting the info to ISY so that ISY can configure things on the fly for the current situation in the theater.  That is either ISY directly controlling the light, or ISY linking/unlinking the light from the MS.

[larryllix]

@ISY Newbie Can you tell us about your system, what devices you have, and maybe some description of your experience with programming using ISY, and/or elsewhere, so we know what level of solutions to offer you?

[ISY Newbie]

On 1/4/2020 at 7:09 AM, larryllix said:

@ISY Newbie Can you tell us about your system, what devices you have, and maybe some description of your experience with programming using ISY, and/or elsewhere, so we know what level of solutions to offer you?

I was away over the weekend. Thanks to everyone for sharing their ideas.

As to hardware, I have Denon AV receriver, isy994i, insteon motion sensors and insteon light switches.  I don't have a lot of ISY programming experiences under my belt yet, but compared to other programming languages that I've used in the past like Python, ISY programming doesn't look very difficult or complex.

Without knowing that ISY can detect some kind of signal from my AV receiver, I thought about adding another MS in the foyer leading to the home theater. Then a program will turn on the lights in the theater ONLY IF motion is detected by both the foyer MS and the home theater MS within a short span of time. Theater MS trigger alone will not turn the light switch on unless the foyer MS was triggered first.  Of course, the downside to this is someone outside the theater walking into the foyer (not very likely) and someone in the theater fidgeting (very likely) at the same time. 

How do you create a condition that will return true if one MS was on within the previous, say 2 minutes of another MS?

[larryllix]

19 minutes ago, ISY Newbie said:

I was away over the weekend. Thanks to everyone for sharing their ideas.

As to hardware, I have Denon AV receriver, isy994i, insteon motion sensors and insteon light switches.  I don't have a lot of ISY programming experiences under my belt yet, but compared to other programming languages that I've used in the past like Python, ISY programming doesn't look very difficult or complex.

Without knowing that ISY can detect some kind of signal from my AV receiver, I thought about adding another MS in the foyer leading to the home theater. Then a program will turn on the lights in the theater ONLY IF motion is detected by both the foyer MS and the home theater MS within a short span of time. Theater MS trigger alone will not turn the light switch on unless the foyer MS was triggered first.  Of course, the downside to this is someone outside the theater walking into the foyer (not very likely) and someone in the theater fidgeting (very likely) at the same time. 

How do you create a condition that will return true if one MS was on within the previous, say 2 minutes of another MS?

I use preset integer variable values for each room, known in other languages as constants. I fix their init to value to a constant as well as their working values.
Each room have a value which I use the tens as the floor and the units as the room with increasing values from inside to the exit door. Eg $cMUDROOM is 29, $cRECROOM is 11, Outbuilding is 31 etc... This is just a memory and readability technique.

I have a second program for every MS in the house with a simple program like.

If MS control is switched ON
Then $sMS.motion.lastRoom = $cROOM.MUDROOM
Else ---

Now that variable is watched by a common program that does some stuff, depending on away mode, night/day etc.. but the important one here is take a recording variable, shift it left two decimal digits and add the latest room to the tens and units positions. Now you have a variable with the latest two MS movements detected and can tell direction from that variable.

Unfortunately I will be away for a week and have to pack desperately  tonight. I posted some programs for this technique to somebody else about two months back. A filtered search may find it with my name on it.

As an experienced programmer, the triggered programing (non-linear) may give you some trouble getting your head around it. If you have some VB in the past, you are well on your way.
BTW: Integer variables do NOT trigger programs while stat Variables do cause program triggers.

 

[oberkc]

1 hour ago, ISY Newbie said:

How do you create a condition that will return true if one MS was on within the previous, say 2 minutes of another MS?

This may take more than a single program.  And there are always multiple ways of doing things.

A simple approach could be something like:

First program:

if

control "another MS" is on

then

wait two minutes

run this program (else path)

Second program:

if 

control "one MS" is on

and "first program" is true

then

do what you want when one MS was on within the previous two minutes of another MS

else

nothing

[apostolakisl]

I don't get it.  Why do you want the lights to turn on from motion sensors of someone walking into the room.  Do you live alone?  If someone is in the theater watching a movie, and someone else walks in, triggering the outside sensor then the inside sensor, the lights will turn on full bright.  That would be something the person already watching a movie won't like.

[ISY Newbie]

2 hours ago, apostolakisl said:

I don't get it.  Why do you want the lights to turn on from motion sensors of someone walking into the room.  Do you live alone?  If someone is in the theater watching a movie, and someone else walks in, triggering the outside sensor then the inside sensor, the lights will turn on full bright.  That would be something the person already watching a movie won't like.

Maybe it's just my family, but watching in the home theater is usually a group event for us. Whenever we are watching in the home theater, the vast majority of the occupants of the house are usually in there, not having to worry about someone else coming down to the basement for no reason.

If it was just me or even me and my wife without the kids, I wouldn't feel inclined to go down, turn on the AV gear, roll down the screen, etc. Too much hassle. 

Maybe I'll just hang a sign on the door: "movie in progress. please knock before entering." 

[TrojanHorse]

Maybe it's just my family, but watching in the home theater is usually a group event for us. Whenever we are watching in the home theater, the vast majority of the occupants of the house are usually in there, not having to worry about someone else coming down to the basement for no reason.
If it was just me or even me and my wife without the kids, I wouldn't feel inclined to go down, turn on the AV gear, roll down the screen, etc. Too much hassle. 
Maybe I'll just hang a sign on the door: "movie in progress. please knock before entering." 

Haha that’s one route. Maybe automate the sign?

Some good suggestions here. I think we need to back up though and get a few questions answered

-what remote are you using in the HT? Harmony would be ideal
- does your ISY have the IR sensor installed?
- are you running 5.x firmware on ISY? Node servers?
- Is there a door on the theatre that could have a sensor? Is it closed when you watch movies?

In a simple explanation like @LarryLix mentioned you need to track the state of the theatre. Are you watching a movie or not?

If you just had 1 motion sensor in the theatre, I would have it enabled to turn on the lights if you’re not watching a movie otherwise disable that program. If it’s an Insteon motion sensor (which I don’t use anymore) I wouldn’t have it linked to the lights via scene. Deal with the 1 second delay by running a program and simply enable or disable the program based on whether the movie is playing.

The above questions will help determine how you can keep track of the state of the theatre (movie playing true or false)? Then you can think about things like - what to do when you pause the movie?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[larryllix]

Here was one simple technique requiring no ISY programming. Blind an MS so it detects just over a line drawn over the heads of seated occupants. I use over my bed and it works very well with distinct zones.