So, today i tried to setup my first automation, to turn on the hallway lights on motion detection.
I have an aeotec multisensor that i purchase for this task, and now i’m finding out that on batteries its basically useless for motion detection. At least from what i read about polling intervals etc.
I just wondered if someone could confirm this, that for the device to be awake and detect motion instantly it needs to have an interval of like 1 second, and if anyone does this on batteries?
Reading the manual for the device itself, it has a built in association function with a timer, but i can’t find anymore information on this, and i’m wondering if this can be used to directly tell another device how to operate and if this would use less battery power etc.
Yeah, without a power connection your choices are either to go through batteries at an astounding rate by adjusting the polling from the battery defaults or turn off the motion sensor to save battery power.
Not really great choices, but that’s why I have mine plugged in.
Really disappointing as one of the main things i wanted to automate was security, so this would be the same for door sensors etc?? Seems completely pointless as how can we be expected to run USB cables everywhere.
As for USB powering this one device i could put it in a shelf (this is probably the only scenario where i can do this), did you have to purchase a wall plug as well? There is no mention of what is needed here in the user guide
It is just a motion sensor but it is very effective. I’ve had mine in my high traffic kitchen for about 3 months now and it is still reporting 100% battery. Response seems to be immediate. If you don’t need the other sensors of the Aeotec, this would be a good cordless choice.
I’m confused now. I just used a community provided timer script to test this out, and the sensor immediately reports the motion to HA and the light is turned on.
@rpitera What parameter of the sensor is for the polling time? If i’ve included this sensor with batteries from the start and the polling time is set lower (or so i read), surely the motion shouldn’t report within a second?
I have read the wrong manual Aeotec supplies, and its really not enough information!
Polling is different than the device sending a signal. It seems that the Aeotec is responding in a similar way to the motion sensor I have. If the sensor notices a change (motion), it will send that information over the zwave network immediately. If for whatever reason, the zwave network doesn’t notice the change when it happened and was first sent, it will be captured the next time the device is polled but since it is on battery, it can only be polled while it is awake e.g. when it has just tried to send information.
So i guess this comment is wrong then “Yeah, without a power connection your choices are either to go through batteries at an astounding rate by adjusting the polling from the battery defaults or turn off the motion sensor to save battery power.”
If this sensor sends a signal immediately then thats all i need, not sure why this isn’t clearer in the manual
Door sensors work differently, because they are binary sensors and they typically report their state when it changes so they don’t need to be polled as often. But multisensors like the Aeotec have a number of sensors that state change rapidly (or constantly in the case of motion) so they suck more power. Beefing up the batteries would only make the sensor to big to be practical.
If you really wanted to, you could tweak the polling to adjust the profile for the motion sensor, but in the long run I think it would still be too long between updates to be practical. I’m sure you know this, but in OZWCP you want this sensor to be setup for binary reporting to be most efficient with HA.
I have mine connected with your standard dollar store type USB plug adapters so you don’t need to get fancy. Where I spent the money was on really long FLAT USB cables that match the color of my wall so it’s less obtrusive. I picked up my flat cables on Amazon.
@Kbeesnees is right about the Ecolink sensors in rooms where you don’t need to monitor environment conditions like light and humidity and they are almost identical to the GoControl sensors I use with Wink. In fact I think they may even do temperature if they are like the GCs.
Two things to know about the Ecolinks though; firstly make sure you update them with the latest firmware. Also, they have a long reset time, so once they detect motion it’s about 4-5 minutes before they reset themselves to a non-motion state. According to a review I read, if you set the the internal pin to test mode and it fixes this and makes it almost instantaneous without any noticeable effect on battery life. I haven’t yet seen if this is the case with the GoControls but I have them in areas where this isn’t as much of an issue.
My first Z-Wave Multisensor was the Fibaro 4-in-1 but since I liked the design of the Aeontec more, I ordered one of them als well and totally failed on getting them running as a battery powered device.
I’ll definitely stick to Fibaro Multisensors, already have my second one and will get more. They work great on battery (they are designed to only work on battery, tehre is no other option), they are highly configurable and every singe parameter is documented in detail.
I have about 10 of the multi-sensor 6. All except one of them are on battery. Motion is always detected and sent to the zwave network (and through to HASS) immediately. The other sensors send data by default every 3600 seconds (60 mins) or whenever there has been a significant change in the sensor value. I have had them in place for several months and the battery is still nearly full in all of them.
@daithos Yes, i’ve just looking over all the configs and run a test script and see that its instant (though there is a “sensitivity” option in config, so maybe this would reduce any power even more if required). As you say all other sensor data is sent every hour. May i ask did you change any configs at all, or leave everything as default?
It seems there is a lot of confusion in this thread then about the battery ones, @rpitera it seems you didn’t need to power these at all!
This is off the top of my head so zwave option numbers might be wrong.
Option 5 - value 10 (this sets the wait time to 10 seconds between detecting motion and reporting its stopped). You probably dont want it this short, I use custom appdaemon scripts on motion stop for my automation’s.
Option 3 - value 2 - puts the motions sensor into binary mode, instead of basic command set.
Report group 1 - 600 seconds.
I have the sensitivity set to maximum, otherwise I find it doesnt turn the lights on when my kids go past.
If you can power them I would, but you dont have to and battery life is excellent. The advantage of powering them is that they report any changes to any sensor immediately instead of just on major changes and/or every set number of mins. Motion + alarm sensors are always reported immediately no matter which way you have it.
Thanks. I don’t need the other sensors to report often to be honest so that isn’t a concern to me, i can leave it at 1hour thats just fine.
What the advantage of setting it to binary? I didn’t touch this setting and my test worked so i’m curious as to what this does.
One last thing, this sensor has its own timer built in, i take it you don’t use this but a custom timer in HA or other? Or is this what you are referring to as Option 5?
Hmmmm… I cant find it in the HA documentation, but I know its there. If you want the sensor to report on/off you need to put it into binary mode. Hopefully someone else might be able to point you to the documentation about it. My search fu has failed me.
Yes thats exactly what im referring to, its the inbuilt timer. I like to have different on/off times based on the time of day… overly complicates things but that the fun
Well maybe that will change some things in HA which were confusing me. Currently my script has to detect “sensor_burglar” and its state from 0 to 8. I thought this was odd, maybe setting it to binary will change the entities altogether so i’ll give that a try!
In order for Home Assistant to recognize the sensor properly, you will need to change its configuration from Basic Set (default) to Binary Sensor report or Alarm report.
Yes for sure. Set to binary in OZW. I ignore level, type, sourcenodeid and burglar. UV doesn’t work inside. In binary mode I don’t think level ever reports. I’ve not seen type report anything either. Burglar reports either vibration 3 or motion 8. I’m sure someone could come up with a use case for those.
If you’re using motion for a trigger use the binary sensor that reports like this:
The other sensors can be read through these elements:
Would you mind sharing your automation config for the sensor? I’ve mounted mine on the ceiling (currently cable tied to a light), and although the docs says a range of 6x8m oval, i can literally slowly walk up to it until it fires around 1m away.
I dont think its an issue with my HA scripts etc because the LED doesn’t come on. Seems completely unusable for a hallway motion sensor (to turn light on), and it makes me worry about using it for anything security related if its this bad.
Hopefully i’m missing something which is why i’m asking for how you are using it, and if you also experience these issues!
I’m at work now so I don’t have access to OZW. The only thing I changed was the type to binary. If you’ve done that then the sensor is working as it should. You’re right I don’t think it’s an HASS thing. Do you have a binary_sensor entry?
Could it be that pointing it down is not giving you enough coverage? I’m thinking if you have a cone of sensitivity pointing straight down then you’d have to be pretty close to show the sensor enough heat (IR) to trip it. I don’t know for sure but I assume these would be calibrated to need enough signal to trip in order to avoid pets tripping them. They certainly show it mounted in the ceiling though. Interesting.
Mine is currently on a window sill in my home office. I will play with it and see if I can get it to work on the ceiling. Right now it sees me sitting at the desk almost constantly. Better than my alarm sensor which is hardwired.
