Micro Module behaviour

[K-bert]

When I first moved into my house I replaced the light by the rear door with a motion activated flood light for security reasons. Two years ago I built a detached garage in the back yard. In the winter months the back yard dark in the mornings and evenings. As such when the garage was built I installed two lights on the side of the garage to light the path around it for taking garbage and recycling to the bins in the alley. I automated this using an on/off switch for the lights in the garage, a micro module in the motion light, and button on a keypad in the house. I called the scene "Path Lights"

The on/off switch is the responder in the scene and the micro module and button are controller/responders. The way I wired up the module is in the attachment of this post.

I recently acquired an I/O module that is in the basement for controlling the humidifier on the furnace. I used the security rough in that came with the house and a magnetic sensor to connect to the input of the I/O module. This lets my EISY know when the back door is opened.

I wrote a program with the conditions "if between sunset and sunrise (next day) AND back door open" then turn on the Path Lights scene.

This worked great during testing. The scene turned on when I opened the back door. However, yesterday when I took some stuff out to the garage the lights came on when the door opened, but when I stepped outside and motion was detected the scene turned off. I shrugged it off at the time, but then it did it to me again this morning.

The motion sensor should provide a latching signal to the micro module but having a program to turn the lights on seems to have reversed the on - off operation of the module.

Is there a set up option I should change in the micro module? I am currently using the built in timer on the motion sensor to keep the lights on for about five minutes so it should be providing an on signal for that whole time.

And because someone might ask: the reason I am not setting the I/O module as another controller to the scene is that I do not want the lights to come on when it is still sunny outside when the rear door is opened.

 

K-bert

[paulbates]

It's going to help to see the program. 

What you're describing could happen its totally controlled with a scene

What I do in these situations is:

1. Use a scene where the sensor is the controller to turn the light on fast
2. Set the "off" time of the detector to the longest time possible if possible
3. Use a program to detect it "switched on" and use a wait of my choosing and have the program switch it back off

If you can;t set the off time on the sensor to be long, do the whole thing program only with no scene

Edited 19 hours ago by paulbates

[Guy Lavoie]

I do something similar to Paul, which is basically detach the motion detection from the action, by having a program in between the two. I use Insteon motion sensors in my basement to turn on a Hue bulb for a short time, for those situations where I'm just going there to get something momentarily. This avoids the need to turn on the big ceiling fluorescent lights for just a minute. Having a program allows it to retrigger by new motion, and avoid the motion sensor turning off the lights because it's timer is up (I do the opposite of Paul: I set it to the shortest on time, and ignore the off signal altogether). It's the program that sets the on time. I can also make it time of day sensitive as you are doing, and also ignore the motion sensing and the Hue bulb if the fluorescent lights are on.

Post your program. It should be easy to figure out.

[K-bert]

Thank you for your replies!

I don't want to crank up the time that the motions sensor is on for because if I have a program turn the light off after five minutes and then someone else is in the back yard the motion light will not re-trigger the micro module until the time on the motion sensor has passed.

I took a look at the options for the module in the admin console the only thing I have changed previously here was turning off the LED. Its in an enclosure so it will never be seen anyway.

There is an option to set it as "Line high always On; Line low always Off"

Since I know that sending a high from the motion sensor turns the light on when it is off and now apparently off when it is on I wonder if I should check this option.

The program I am using uses a variable called "sRearDoorOpen". I have it do a some other things in the system like turn the humidifier off if the door is open long enough to prevent wasting water. A screen grab of the program is attached.

K-bert

[K-bert]

And of course I thought of this after posting my reply: If I simply add another argument to the program with "And Micro Module Status is Off" to the program it should turn the Path Lights scene on when the door is open and turn in back on if the motion sensor turns it off.

K-bert

[K-bert]

3 hours ago, Guy Lavoie said:

I do something similar to Paul, which is basically detach the motion detection from the action, by having a program in between the two. I use Insteon motion sensors in my basement to turn on a Hue bulb for a short time, for those situations where I'm just going there to get something momentarily. This avoids the need to turn on the big ceiling fluorescent lights for just a minute. Having a program allows it to retrigger by new motion, and avoid the motion sensor turning off the lights because it's timer is up (I do the opposite of Paul: I set it to the shortest on time, and ignore the off signal altogether). It's the program that sets the on time. I can also make it time of day sensitive as you are doing, and also ignore the motion sensing and the Hue bulb if the fluorescent lights are on.

Post your program. It should be easy to figure out.

The only reason I cant do this right now is that the micro module detects the motion sensor output and controls the lights at the same time. So far as I know there isn't a way to disconnect the output (Load) from the input (Sense #1). I could easily do this if I had a second module in the light so one would detect the motion sensor output and then the other control the load.

K-bert

[Guy Lavoie]

Understood. I wasn't familiar with the micro module.

[K-bert]

And I can now confirm that adding the condition in the "If" part of the program did not work. As before the lights came on when the door was opened. When i stepped out the lights went off as before, but then came back on as expected.

However this continued with the lights turning off and on in about one second intervals. My neighbours must have thought i had a child flipping the lights on and off or something.

I was able to disable the program in the mobile app.

I left my laptop at work so i will give it another try this weekend.

[paulbates]

Don't want to be a broken record, but you need to take control of the lights' off away from the sensor and let a program do it

[oberkc]

8 hours ago, paulbates said:

Don't want to be a broken record, but you need to take control of the lights' off away from the sensor and let a program do it

I support this statement.  You need to get the motion sensor disconnected from the micro module and control everything programmatically.  Assuming an Insteon sensor, configure it to send ON only commands, and use a program to turn the lights off.  I tend to set the motion sensor time out to be short, so that continuous motion sensing retriggers the motion program before the program turns off the lights.