I would like to trigger evening lights based on light levels in a room, but I can’t seem to find any way of doing so. I currently use cloud coverage from a weather integration as an estimate for overall brightness, but this can be unreliable as it is for the city in general and not specifically at my home.
I donot know how good the Xiaomi is in poor light conditions, my Hue motion/light sensor IS poor, it is fine with higher lux but towards dusk it drops quikly to 1. I built byself on with esphome and a sensor from ali to help, much better…but esphome can be a hurdle too
Here is the 24 hr graphs for the aqara motion sensor in my kitchen and basement laundry room (has a window). they have a built-in lux sensor
As comparison, my Hue. Around 16:00 we had a thunderstorm with heavy rain but you see that it drops to a level which I can only interpret as ‘dark’…which it was not
I’ve thought about the Aqara but it only seems to be available via AliExpress. I would feel better if it were listed on Aqara’s actual site.
Aqara T1 zigbee version is available for me via Aliexpress at 26EUR
If you don’t mind Zwave, Fibaro and NeoCoolcam have good Multisensors with light. Works fine here, both.
DIY:
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These are brilliant. I run them via USB power and they report super quick. Great for light based automation. I use them to trigger lights on motion, only when lux level is too low. All done with the same device.
Zooz also has multisensor that does brightness sensing:
ZOOZ ZSE40 4-IN-1 SENSOR – ZOOZ (getzooz.com)
ZOOZ ZSE11 Q SENSOR – ZOOZ (getzooz.com)
Those are z-wave options.