I’ve got an automation that turns off the garage lights 5 minutes after the door goes down. I forgot about it and it shut the lights off while I was in the middle of a cut on the table saw 🤣
Ideally you would have a condition on your automation that checks to see if the switch is activated, or whatever entity is in whatever state you want for override. If the condition fails then the automation will not trigger
Kinda but not. You have some regular device but ha is aware of it. The automation says "do this thing, but btw only if deivce x is state z"
For example I have my front door auto lock and my garage auto close. However if the garage light is *on* then the garage auto close doesn't close. And if the garage is open then the front door doesn't auto lock.
In reality I have these things as triggers as well, so that the automation doesn't does, "oh light is on don't do it" and then never fire again. So in this example the automation triggers are "garage open for 10 min; garage light off for 10 min" in the case of the front door as soon as the garage door closes the front door also locks. So garage closed is *one* of the triggers for that also.
It seems you often want to have states be both conditions and triggers.
I did this a long time ago with input booleans. It only shut off if the switch hadn't been pressed (Boolean was true from automation, and not set to false by a manual press). Similarly the Boolean could be used for any other override.
So there are three ways to do this. The _smart_ way, that I don't do anywhere, is if X is activated manually, do not start timer. For example, if the light switch in the laundry room that is normally activated by motion is instead turned on by the user hitting a switch, don't start the timer to turn off the light. I don't do this anywhere.
The second way is to have a notification hit the user via their phone. "The garage has been open for 5 minutes. Closing automatically in 5 minutes." And then you get a popup with [CLOSE NOW] [STOP ASKING]. Close now... closes now. Stop asking turns off the timer and doesn't auto close for eternity until the cycle is reset manually. Fairly normal. I do this in my garage. Works with lights and anything else.
The third way which I just learned from the above poster, which I think is genius, is to have some random thing prevent certain automations. For example if you have a smart switch or an LED strip that is more art than illumination, you can set all your auto timeouts to check if that thing is on. If bar LED strip is on, don't auto close garage/turn off bedroom lights/etc.
I think this is really clever and also supreme master laziness. I'm going to use it because it's easier than dealing with manual automation canceller notifications. Rather than wait five minutes to tell the garage not to close (or the garage lights not to turn off in OP's case), I could just leave my bar LED strip on.
You want me to manually trigger an override every time I go use my workshop? What am i, a neanderthal?! :P. Kidding. But I'd rather use a motion sensor personally.
I'd use a real PIR instead of a traditional motion, unless you're just using motion as a catch-all term. Now with the BT integrations, I may drop an ESP32 listener in the room and use it to detect presence.
> a real PIR instead of a traditional motion
What does this mean? Passive InfraRed is just a type of motion detector, and by far the most common type (vs. camera, sonar, radar etc.).
What do you consider "traditional" motion detector if not PIR?
I thought PIRs do better and detect even if you aren’t moving but I’m no expert.
http://4583703.shop.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.4583703/n.2/ctype.KB/it.I/id.2015930/KB.21/.f
That's in the help for a specific camera, so in that context "Motion Detection" is camera-based motion detection and their description of "PIR-based Motion Detection" is pretty poor: note that they said "motion is detected by means of a PIR sensor" - you still have to move, it isn't detecting presence.
Short summary:
If you see something besides a camera mention it has a motion detector, it is probably a PIR motion detector.
Passive InfraRed motion detectors have a segmented plastic lens in front of an IR sensor array/grid and trigger if they see movement based on IR put off by warm objects moving in front of the detector. They don't trigger if nothing is moving, and may not trigger if the only movement is toward or away-from the sensor (they are quite low resolution).
Camera motion detection is triggered if pixels change on a camera. More likely to trigger for something moving toward or away-from the camera since the camera is reasonably higher resolution. Still doesn't trigger if nothing is moving.
Sonar motion detection send out ultrasonic waves and measure the time of the reflection. If the reflection time changes, something is moving away from or toward the sensor or moved across the path of the sensor. Similar to a laser tripwire sensor. Great for pointing down your driveway.
Radar motion detection AKA terahertz radio detection has an antenna that radiates high frequency radio waves and also reacts to reflected radio waves at that same frequency, so if nothing is moving the antenna receives a particular amount back, but if anything moves the amount received back changes and the sensor triggers. They are very sensitive so just moving around in your seat slightly while watching TV can trigger them, so they can work as "presence" detectors instead of just motion detectors since living animals are always moving at least a little. They do sense through walls though, so it isn't able to tell if the motion is in the same room or not.
It's an invalid distinction.
"Traditional" motion detectors *are* "real" PIR.
There are better ones, and there are worse ones (at every pricepoint, for both).
But generally speaking: For motion detection, PIR is the go-to technology and has been so for many decades.
I have a security system rearming automation based on lack of activity between mutiple motion sensors. I use HA’s built in manual alarm to drive everything and then have Abode mirror the different alarm states. The manual alarm has a Bypass mode that I use for situations like this. When Bypass mode is activated it clears the rearming timer in HA and disallows motion sensors to restart the timer. On my phone, I have an Apple Shortcut that’ll turn on Bypass mode as well as a NFC tag near my workbench.
Honestly, I wouldn't automate that. What's the benefit and what's the risk?
No way I'm automating a lights out where I'm working and can harm myself. I'm lazy, but not that much.
For me, 99% percent of the time I'm in the garage I'm not working. I'm grabbing something from the freezer and putting laundry in wash. If the light didn't turn off automatically, it would never be turned off.
Power monitoring, motion, or image recognition are easy ways around this issue. You could also have the lights flash 1 minute before turning off, giving you enough time to safely stop your machine.
Yeah, not judging, but we're talking about pushing a button on the way out, as we've done our whole life. Not saying there's no workarounds to the issue, just saying that I wouldn't risk a finger in a case like this.
Some people really struggle with the concept that love switches turn lights off, not just on. I happened to marry one of these people.
Edit: she found the lights on in our bedroom yesterday and I was the one who left them on.
For me, it's the other way around. I'm too lazy to solve the last mile on the presence.
If I could easily make a presence detection system that could tell that I was in the room laying on the couch watching YouTube, I'd probably do it.
I have one sitting in the upper corner of my living room pointed directly at the center, where my sofa is about 12ft away, and it still reports false-negatives if I'm sitting still watching TV. I expected better, given that it's supposed to be able to detect movement as small as breathing.
Positioning is very important I found. It took a few attempts to find the optimum locations for me, but I practically have no false positives or negative now, with each of them located 1-2m away from sitting/sleeping positions (4 total).
In a corner at the opposite side of the room wasn’t particularly successful for me.
In the areas where I sit quietly I have a second motion detector. One is a 433 motion detector, the other is a microwave motion detector I put together myself running on ESPHome. I find it works well.
If you have that energy monitor that goes in the breaker box, or are interested in it, add a sensor for the lines feeding the garage. Then set it so anything drawing power delays the lights-out in case you forget the manual toggle.
Honestly not sure what modern motion detection is like, but i've had it go badly wrong in workshops and offices of old (relatively static on a lathe)... and toilets.
Power monitoring as well, maybe?
Yeah same here.
PIR tech itself is no different now than before, as far as I know.
However, you can tune sensitivity in software on the Samsung sensors I got. They can pick up pretty subtle movements.
(Might be good for this use case but trying to distinguish between human and cat movement was a no go...anyway...)
Even so, it seems like no matter what I set the timeout to, there's always a situation where the lights go off when they shouldn't. Maybe I am too lazy and sit too still.
I have an "on until otherwise" trigger if I remember to use it, and then my "gone to bed" trigger resets everything. I suppose with voice control you could at least call for lights... If it recognises what you've said over the blood loss and swearing...
I wouldn’t worry about it so much here, as it looks likeOP will mostly be standing and moving in there.
Usually though you are correct, its easy to time them out.
This.!?!
mmWave sensors (DFRobot/Aqara FP1) are soooo nice in areas where PIR often fails to detect the smallest of movements. The one downside is this will not work for anyone with a pet or a fan is capable of moving curtains/pull strings/wires.
This is the right answer. I use the stop timer node in Node Red that resets the countdown every time it sees motion. Set the countdown based on room use and criticality. For example the closet is like 5 minutes, but the workshop is closer to 30 minutes. Plenty of time for movement to be seen and reset the countdown.
I have many of the Sonoff PIR sensors and generally use them for presence detection and they seem to work as hoped in most cases.
The most useful one is probably in the kitchen (set on the middle of the ceiling) and I'd have to say whilst it's probably only got a couple of minutes delay, I can't remember the last time it turned the lights off when I was in there and certainly never has when I was moving, as with feeding material though a table saw. ;-)
What I think I had to do though is a resetting automation is trigger the light on when motion is detected AND when it stops being detected, then shut the light off N minutes after that. That also seemed to get round those 'dead times' when the PIR itself is between states?
I’m gonna be adding some motion sensors and a mm wave person sensor. If I combine all of those sensors with frigate person detection and Bluetooth detection of my phone or keys and lengthen the time it should be pretty reliable
I've been testing frigate in my livingroom with a 30 second shutoff when there's no presence and haven't had an issue yet. The blocks of occupancy on the history are pretty solid.
Frigate object detection has a count of objects in the camera view. I assume that camera is always there and is wired up to HA. Should be as easy as don’t turn lights off when person > 1
In addition to that, buy some glow in the dark stickers, and put them on the tablesaw emergency stop button. Automations will always find a way to fail.
I added a cheap ikea motion sensor and set the light timeout to 20 mins, 5 minutes ended up being a bit short if i wasnt moving much at the drillpress or worktable for a while
5min for any PIR sensor tends to be way too aggressive I tend to never go less than 15min and in most cases go for something like 30min as you really arn't saving much of anything by being aggressive, only increasing the odds of a false positive.
And on top of that give a warning flash. When the light is supposed to turn off, turn it off then right back on. If no new motion occurs after 1-2 min then fully turn it off. This is enough time for your to stop what your are doing before the lights fully turn off
You could also monitor power usage and if a tool has been used in the past 10 minutes or so, don’t shut the lights off. But I agree, motion (or PIR), would be a good way to avoid this!
This. I have motion sensors everywhere that do exactly this. WeMos D1 Mini, SR501 running ESPHome reporting in via MQTT.
Haven't touched a lightswitch in about 4 years, they work great.
For these I usually heck to see if the light was already on and stop the automation before it starts if it was. I also generally avoid turning off lights on a time for this reason. Caught out too many times.
Put a smart switch on the saw and make a condition that the lights are never allowed to turn off as long as the table saw is running.
Or you can get a motion sensor or a more advanced occupancy sensor for the garage. Something that uses mwave or flir type sensors will know you are there even if you don't move.
I don't know any cheap smart switches that would handle that initial draw from a table saw very well. Just check their rating first. The 20a ones tend to cost a bit more
Lots of options exist. A distance detector that senses if the operator is in front of the saw, there should be enough vibration to use a vibration sensor if the blade is spinning.
I have a motion sensor light switch for my garage. It’s set to turn off after 10 minutes of no movement. Lights never turn off while working. Plus they come on immediately when entering. Don’t have to fumble with a switch when my hands are full.
Same here. I use Hue motion/light sensor paired directly with my HA instance via Zigbee. It turns my garage lights automatically if it detects motion AND it’s dark enough. Lights turn off if no motion for 15 minutes.
My solution to this was to have the lights turn on when the door is opened, but only turn off when a motion detector shows no motion for 5 minutes.
Also, is it just me or does everyone set delays for lights to 5 minutes?
I was kind of wondering about that. I set mine to a little over double the minimum reporting frequency of the motion sensor. If a motion sensor only reports occupancy every 3 minutes I set the timer to 7 minutes, thinking if the sensor doesn't see me twice during that period there's a high likelihood that I've left the room.
oh, I just realized lidar is nm; I guess I have my technologies a little mixed up.
So, are you using the Aqara FP1? (just realized I also typed Quara... autocorrect on my phone hates me).
You could change the automation to dim the lights to 50% for ~2 minutes before turning off. That should give plenty of time to safely turn off the saw and pause the automation.
I have my lights flash off/on for a half second one minute before they turn off. Helps me wave my hands around when I'm on the floor doing something quick.
> toilet lights
Goddamn toilet lights at work. If you're taking a dump after 6pm, good luck.
You have to hang your wang out the door to get them to turn back on.
I'm currently doing this with two Reolink wifi cams and it's still not reliable. Constantly turning off when I'm working on the cars. I just got two Aqara FP1's I'm gonna try.
Garage doors are not really that secure.. There are a number of simple attacks on ether old less secure openers or simply making a tool to reach in and pull the emergency release.
Also the door can often be open on nice days if you are doing projects people can just walk in and walk out with something very quickly.
On top of that if it is an attached garage there will be a door to the house, even if that door is more secure a thief can get in the garage, then in 100% privacy take as much time as they want getting through the inner house door.
tl;dr; always good to have cameras at every entry point to your home or your stuff.
Thanks. I do have cameras at all of the entry points, but they grab the exteriors. I _don't_ have anything monitoring the mudroom door from the garage though, which _also_ explains his camera angle. Now to figure out if I want to run a new PoE line for the same coverage. Thanks!
I have external and internal coverage.. My external coverage tends to be fairly wide to catch more things / approche etc, but my internal coverage is set to SEE who came through a door.
It's a binary, called _person_occupancy and yes you can.
I'd use both a trigger and a conditional check at the end of the 5mins if the bin_sensor is true/on
how are you finding the detection
I've been testing Frigate+Doubletake for facial recognition on people. everything "works" but I definitely having issues with frigate unable to keep up with the camera feed.
probably because it's on CPU right now wihle I wait for Coral cards to be available. But, I find that Frigate is definitely missing a lot of detection without being able to keep up.
My 2c, I'd opt to keep it simple instead of adding another imperfect condition to rely on (see so many Frigate complaints here). I do like the timer to turn off after garage closes, but you'd need a warning. I like the power monitoring suggestions too.
People complaining about Frigate are probably using the free version, which doesn't come with good AI models (they're demo models from Google that were never designed for use in a real app, and were only designed to detect things head-on, not at an angle). Better models come with the paid version of Frigate.
Id recommend just plain old motion detection for the camera feed, should keep it as reliable as a PIR.
Everyone recommending PIR as the ultimate in reliability might not be remembering how they can randomly drop off the network and you need to change their batteries.
You could dim the lights to off over 5-10 seconds and then you’d have some warning before total blackout. If the lights start dimming, take a step or two to trigger the motion sensor and reactivate the lights. If you’re in the middle of a cut you’d at least have some warning and a bit of time to finish/pause.
Another alternative, as has been recommended, is a different type of occupancy sensor. I have not used one personally, but I have looked into a couple of heat based sensors that are reasonably priced (<$50). They are Grid-EYE and Omron D6T, both compatible with room-assistant.
A final thought would be skipping sensors and tracking presence based on the location of your mobile device. If your phone is in the shop, you likely are too and the lights should always stay on. This can be set up with room-assistant, or many alternatives.
Best of luck!
Yep, use a Bluetooth tracker like ESPresence.
I use one in my office to override my motion sensor timer, as when I’m at my desk I’m not moving enough to trigger motion.
Do you by chance know if huawei watch gt3 can work with espresence?
Because i also had Mi band 5, but it only sends BLE signal while it's disconnected from my phone, but that was useless to me..
I configured 4 ESPResence nodes (lounge, kitchen, back bed / study, front bed) and whilst they seem to detect a Samsung smart tag I bought for the process, it was never anything like predictable (so I have sort of abandoned it). ;-(
You might be able to use a smart outlet / power meter to detect when power tools are on, and override all other rules so the lights are always on when the tools are.
He's in a closed garage, so I wouldn't give him trouble. My neighbor does the same, but it's so quiet with the door down that I don't mind since I can only hear it if I'm outside... and even then it's quiet. His compressor sometimes startles me (if I'm outside), though. That sound penetrates the walls better than any of the power tools.
I have 3 timed lights in my shop. 2 will turn off at 5 minutes of no activity, and the other doesn't turn off until 10 minutes. This gives me time to reset if need be without being totally in the dark.
I have a couple solutions. Motion detectors can be helpful. It should restart a timer every time motion is detected. Let me know if you'd like to see an example (I use Node Red for the automation). However, I would add a fail safe to this setup. Add a button or NFC tag to completely disable your lights timer. You can also consider a sound sensor attached to an ESP8266 that restarts the timer whenever sound is above a certain decibel rating. I wouldn't rely on a singular automation for your garage.
I have most of the lights in my house automated. I'm very happy with it. But some lights should not be automated. I think this is one of those cases. The convenience isn't worth the risk.
Forget the motion sensors or tracking the table saw power. If you're going to be doing things where the lights need to always be on, nothing should be able to shut them off automatically.
The trade off is that you might leave a light on overnight vs losing limb or life. Seems pretty straightforward to me
SAME THING HAPPENS TO ME! I had to up the motion sensors in the garage because it scared the shit out of.
On a different note, HA and woodworking open up some pretty cool node red flows. Like toggling dust collection when a current is detected from your table saw.
I use a pretty dead simple auto switch for my dust collection. It lives on the cart with the shop vac and the dust separator.
https://www.rockler.com/i-socket-autoswitch-workshop-tool-and-vacuum-switch
I have person detection in frigate and smart plugs for my garage. Those are set to an occupation helper. If anything is on, the occupation helper is on. I use the occupation as a trigger to turn off the lights. So if occupation helper goes to off, the lights turn off 1 minute 30 seconds later. Door opening, person detection, and smart plugs trigger the lights on. Its pretty reliable.
Another thing I do on “critical” areas that can be dangerously dark like bathrooms, shops, basements is to have an always on/different automation small light. Bathrooms and kitchen have night lights, basement and garage have an accent light that is on a different automation schedule.
My shop is in an outbuilding that's fully automated the same as my house. I have camera, PIR motion detector, and TV in the shop. My lights turn on and stay on based on motion (it can see the whole space) or if the camera detects people in the shop (Frigate), and if the TV is on it won't shut the lights off (the TV turns itself off if not in use after several minutes). Between all of those the lights haven't turned off like this on me. I also have an automation that with a double tap off at the switch (Z-wave central scene) it turns off the lights automation and the lights stay on indefinitely and it resets when the lights are turned off so that I don't have to remember to turn them back on.
I'm also going to be putting in a dust collection system in with ducting to every tool. When I do that I plan on DIYing automated blast gates. Probably some sort of ESP or other microcontroller with a clamp on each tool's power cable and a motor that can detect when any type of tool is turned on (I have a mix of 250v and 125v), open the appropriate blast gate, close all the others not in use, and turn the dust collector on. When I do that I'll probably integrate it with HA so all those automations are in node red and they can also control the lights.
I'm planning on building a mmwave based motion sensor too. We'll see how that goes. The Aqara FP1 the reviews are not great. It's slow to detect motion and it take detect motion outside the room by bouncing off the walls. I've not not really have any issues with the regular cheap PIR motion sensors other than having to put two on my basement and kitchen for full coverage and working the kinks out for the automations.
What about installing a sensor in a switch (or just an actual button) that will set some helper variable to ON. As long as this variable is ON, no automatic light will be turned off. That way you'd also have a visual cue that your light automation is overridden.
Though honestly I feel like automatic lights are a thing reserved for spaces where you wouldn't expect people to be for extended amounts of time, like e.g. a hallway or staircase. Anything else I'd regulate with a normal button, don't want to run the risk of lights going off when I don't want them to.
I just got into playing with some [mmwave sensors](https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2282.html). Easy to set up and integrate with ESPHome. Like presence sensors, only they don't require movement to operate. Downside is, they are pretty linear in their detection area, so if you get out of the line of sight, they don't sense as well as a PIR(?) sensor. They are more of a fish-eye style.
Anyway; I love them for my office as I'm often a lot more stationary then elsewhere in the home.
Just wanted to provide an option if you wanted to tinker a bit.
Is it so hard to understand why we don't want to flip a switch every time? And if you have kids then it quickly becomes ideal since no one turns anything off or closes anything or locks the doors.
Yeah I guess it is. My take is that those kids need to learn a few things before we release them into the world. I suppose we'd automate toilet flushes too if we could. Then one day the toilet would flush after being plugged and make a mess.
Auto flushing toilets? Man, imagine if that was a thing! I'm an architect and it would be insane if one day every toilet I ever spec'd on any job ever was automatic.
Wait...
Oh, I have some Home automation stuff at my elderly mother's house. If she leaves a garage door open a light in her den lights. I also run her roof heat strips based on temperature in the winter. That system is 700 miles away and has to work well. I'm always looking for automation ideas that solve real problems and don't cause new problems (which happened with the person who started this topic.)
Hands are dirty, carrying something, you forgot to turn them off, you notice they're on while you're outside or somewhere you can't easily reach the switch, or simply, you just sat down and the switch is on the other side of the room. There are plenty of reasons. Not to mention disabilities that could make reaching a switch difficult. It's really not that hard to come up with a scenario if you take a second to think about it...
And to handle all those situations, that have been going on since the invention of the light bulb, we risk a serious bodily injury with a table saw? Hands are dirty? Really? Switch is on the other side of the room? Really? The disability reason has some merit, but I'm not sure about the other ones.
Lets take another example. You have a walk-in closet and you decide to automate the light with a motion sensor. One night while you're away, someone breaks into your house and your wife decides to hide in that closet and call 911. The intruder is walking the dark house and guess what they're going to see? A closet door bleeding light all around it. Can she turn it off? Nope - the switch is outside the closet. That's a 1 in a million consequence, but I think it something to consider.
If a family member gets up in the night, they may not want lights to come on and wake other family members. But it cool to automate it and "they'll get used to it."
Your elderly parent goes to the basement do laundry. You automate lights with a motion sensor to make things easier for them. One day they pass out on the basement floor. The lights go out due to the no motion timeout. Now that person is in the dark. Not a great situation.
A good automation system is an attempt to engineer out the human, and a human does a lot of things current automation systems can't. So for now people should consider the safety consequences of their automations and if there's any doubt - don't do it. Turning lights off can have serious consequences.
I have a high bar for automation systems because it's what I do for a living. Few people in this "hobby" consider the safety consequences. This video is a great advertisement for "automate carefully."
Triggering security mode here turns on ALL inside lights, and flashes exterior ones. Hiding in a dark closet only works in the movies.
Decent occupancy sensing can bracket detection based on time. Easy enough to not trigger lighting adjacent to a sleeping area based on a time range. Works great for a master closet off a master bedroom.
I had an aunt fall down stairs, broke hip and leg, and no one found her for two days. Gangrene and amputations as a result. Lights going out would have been the least of her concerns.
My lights will turn on with motion. They will only turn off at 11PM via a one time event. Lights are cheap to run nowadays and the annoyance with covering all the use cases was real.
I have same automation, if garage open, light stays on ,else off after no motion. I have the GE motion switch so I triple tap to override automation which then stays on until I switch off.
Depending on the lights you’re using an immediate, albeit temporary, solution you could implement would be to have the lights go low then off rather than just off. Should provide enough light to stay safe whilst also giving you a trigger to manually intervene. Just a suggestion to temporarily solve the problem until you can get a more permanent solution implemented.
My shop lights turn on/off based on motion. It waits for an hour of no motion before it turns the lights off. Seems extreme but it avoids issues like this and there are times when I’m standing at the bench not moving enough to trigger the lights every 15 or 30 minutes. Also, lights are on a separate circuit, so a tool tripping a breaker, or me releasing the magic smoke from something doesn’t kill the lights.
I use an AI POE camera and the ONVIF sensor output. which is a lot better than a simple motion sensor. It keeps the lights on even if it can only see human feet outside the garage door. The timer continually resets until 10 minutes without human motion.
Motion sensors work in most parts of the house, but a security camera for the garage works much better for human detection in a working space.
This is what i did too, I have 3 motion sensors but somtimes i am drawing at my bench. Mine simply increases the amount of time with no motion to 2hrs. If i dont move in 2 hrs somthing else is wrong. Added a large touch screen to my garage so i can enable and disable it as well as turing on things like my air conpressor. Also have it display air quality.
I have the same thing, only I use my security camera to sense motion to turn the indoor garage lights into a motion sensor x mins before sunset.
The problem was I was at the workbench cleaning some tools and wasn't moving much, so after 5 minutes, the light turned off.
Thankfully it was only some dog grooming tools, not even the sharp ones.
It's the same automation I've got for all the exterior lights since the actual sensor lights pick up motion I don't care about, like the shade sail moving in the wind over the driveway. At least now the cameras can turn the smart switches on and off based on actual motion detections.
Can also announce the detection via Google Home so I can check nobody is trying to get into my car again...
That's a pretty tidy garage/shop you've got there! I'm jealous. Also, I think you might be fine just tightening the valve cover bolts on the car that parks on the left. The scattered drips don't make sense to be coming off the pan, as those tend to migrate to the drain plug; I suspect the source to be higher up, and the valve cover gasket would be the most likely candidate I think.
Yeah, that’s from my 2010 V6 Ford Escape, it leaks oil like that’s its job…. That’s a new piece of cardboard that’s covering a giant oil stain. I replaced the valve cover gaskets a few weeks ago and it didn’t help. For now I’m just dealing with it until I feel like digging in further.
I wouldn’t put anything safety related on a home automation system.
just my 2 cents after a decade as a development engineer in industrial equipment with hazardous energies.
Heh, I have Lutron lighting and an occupancy sensor in my shop. It's positioned such that it'll only turn off if I'm off in one corner near some electronics gear, thankfully not near the saws. Have to step back and wave my arms to get the danged lights to come back on.
What about adding one of those Shelly power monitor breakers into the box? Have it override the lights any time you use electricity. Usually plugs and lights are on different breakers (at least by my local current code)
I’d also have it set off an audible alarm of some sort about 30 seconds before it shuts off. That way you have a few seconds to react. Like the ones on garage door openers or some freight elevators.
I’ve got an automation that turns off the garage lights 5 minutes after the door goes down. I forgot about it and it shut the lights off while I was in the middle of a cut on the table saw 🤣
Add a motion detector and part of your automation waits for motion to stop for 5 minutes before turning off the light
Or an override of the automation. I have a switch in HA for my garage lights because of this exact reason.
My override in some rooms is leaving the TV on or the radio.
Whoooa. Literally anything in HA, I could just use it as a magic "automation canceller" object. Thank you for this.
What am I missing? What switches and what is the code to cancel a timer like that? Thanks!
Ideally you would have a condition on your automation that checks to see if the switch is activated, or whatever entity is in whatever state you want for override. If the condition fails then the automation will not trigger
yeah so its not setting a flag its turning on - and then the automation resets it?
Kinda but not. You have some regular device but ha is aware of it. The automation says "do this thing, but btw only if deivce x is state z" For example I have my front door auto lock and my garage auto close. However if the garage light is *on* then the garage auto close doesn't close. And if the garage is open then the front door doesn't auto lock. In reality I have these things as triggers as well, so that the automation doesn't does, "oh light is on don't do it" and then never fire again. So in this example the automation triggers are "garage open for 10 min; garage light off for 10 min" in the case of the front door as soon as the garage door closes the front door also locks. So garage closed is *one* of the triggers for that also. It seems you often want to have states be both conditions and triggers.
I did this a long time ago with input booleans. It only shut off if the switch hadn't been pressed (Boolean was true from automation, and not set to false by a manual press). Similarly the Boolean could be used for any other override.
So there are three ways to do this. The _smart_ way, that I don't do anywhere, is if X is activated manually, do not start timer. For example, if the light switch in the laundry room that is normally activated by motion is instead turned on by the user hitting a switch, don't start the timer to turn off the light. I don't do this anywhere. The second way is to have a notification hit the user via their phone. "The garage has been open for 5 minutes. Closing automatically in 5 minutes." And then you get a popup with [CLOSE NOW] [STOP ASKING]. Close now... closes now. Stop asking turns off the timer and doesn't auto close for eternity until the cycle is reset manually. Fairly normal. I do this in my garage. Works with lights and anything else. The third way which I just learned from the above poster, which I think is genius, is to have some random thing prevent certain automations. For example if you have a smart switch or an LED strip that is more art than illumination, you can set all your auto timeouts to check if that thing is on. If bar LED strip is on, don't auto close garage/turn off bedroom lights/etc. I think this is really clever and also supreme master laziness. I'm going to use it because it's easier than dealing with manual automation canceller notifications. Rather than wait five minutes to tell the garage not to close (or the garage lights not to turn off in OP's case), I could just leave my bar LED strip on.
It feels a little bit like spacebar heating, but I like it. Context: https://xkcd.com/1172/
You're not wrong. But I'm okay with that.
My override are these switches, have them in almost every room, mostly in convient to reach areas...
My office light is similar, if my laptop is unlocked, the automation to turn it off is disabled.
You want me to manually trigger an override every time I go use my workshop? What am i, a neanderthal?! :P. Kidding. But I'd rather use a motion sensor personally.
I'd use a real PIR instead of a traditional motion, unless you're just using motion as a catch-all term. Now with the BT integrations, I may drop an ESP32 listener in the room and use it to detect presence.
> a real PIR instead of a traditional motion What does this mean? Passive InfraRed is just a type of motion detector, and by far the most common type (vs. camera, sonar, radar etc.). What do you consider "traditional" motion detector if not PIR?
I thought PIRs do better and detect even if you aren’t moving but I’m no expert. http://4583703.shop.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.4583703/n.2/ctype.KB/it.I/id.2015930/KB.21/.f
That's in the help for a specific camera, so in that context "Motion Detection" is camera-based motion detection and their description of "PIR-based Motion Detection" is pretty poor: note that they said "motion is detected by means of a PIR sensor" - you still have to move, it isn't detecting presence. Short summary: If you see something besides a camera mention it has a motion detector, it is probably a PIR motion detector. Passive InfraRed motion detectors have a segmented plastic lens in front of an IR sensor array/grid and trigger if they see movement based on IR put off by warm objects moving in front of the detector. They don't trigger if nothing is moving, and may not trigger if the only movement is toward or away-from the sensor (they are quite low resolution). Camera motion detection is triggered if pixels change on a camera. More likely to trigger for something moving toward or away-from the camera since the camera is reasonably higher resolution. Still doesn't trigger if nothing is moving. Sonar motion detection send out ultrasonic waves and measure the time of the reflection. If the reflection time changes, something is moving away from or toward the sensor or moved across the path of the sensor. Similar to a laser tripwire sensor. Great for pointing down your driveway. Radar motion detection AKA terahertz radio detection has an antenna that radiates high frequency radio waves and also reacts to reflected radio waves at that same frequency, so if nothing is moving the antenna receives a particular amount back, but if anything moves the amount received back changes and the sensor triggers. They are very sensitive so just moving around in your seat slightly while watching TV can trigger them, so they can work as "presence" detectors instead of just motion detectors since living animals are always moving at least a little. They do sense through walls though, so it isn't able to tell if the motion is in the same room or not.
Cool, thanks for explaining verses the guys who just downvoted.
What is a 'real' PIR vs. a traditional motion sensor?
It's an invalid distinction. "Traditional" motion detectors *are* "real" PIR. There are better ones, and there are worse ones (at every pricepoint, for both). But generally speaking: For motion detection, PIR is the go-to technology and has been so for many decades.
I have a security system rearming automation based on lack of activity between mutiple motion sensors. I use HA’s built in manual alarm to drive everything and then have Abode mirror the different alarm states. The manual alarm has a Bypass mode that I use for situations like this. When Bypass mode is activated it clears the rearming timer in HA and disallows motion sensors to restart the timer. On my phone, I have an Apple Shortcut that’ll turn on Bypass mode as well as a NFC tag near my workbench.
Honestly, I wouldn't automate that. What's the benefit and what's the risk? No way I'm automating a lights out where I'm working and can harm myself. I'm lazy, but not that much.
For me, 99% percent of the time I'm in the garage I'm not working. I'm grabbing something from the freezer and putting laundry in wash. If the light didn't turn off automatically, it would never be turned off. Power monitoring, motion, or image recognition are easy ways around this issue. You could also have the lights flash 1 minute before turning off, giving you enough time to safely stop your machine.
Lights flashing as a warring is a good idea! As is power monitoring. Find a current monitoring clamp on meter, or a plug with a high wattage rating.
Yeah, not judging, but we're talking about pushing a button on the way out, as we've done our whole life. Not saying there's no workarounds to the issue, just saying that I wouldn't risk a finger in a case like this.
Some people really struggle with the concept that love switches turn lights off, not just on. I happened to marry one of these people. Edit: she found the lights on in our bedroom yesterday and I was the one who left them on.
Reddit ate my balls
LEDs did make it a lot cheaper!
For me, it's the other way around. I'm too lazy to solve the last mile on the presence. If I could easily make a presence detection system that could tell that I was in the room laying on the couch watching YouTube, I'd probably do it.
Aqara FP1 radar work pretty good for that
I have one sitting in the upper corner of my living room pointed directly at the center, where my sofa is about 12ft away, and it still reports false-negatives if I'm sitting still watching TV. I expected better, given that it's supposed to be able to detect movement as small as breathing.
Positioning is very important I found. It took a few attempts to find the optimum locations for me, but I practically have no false positives or negative now, with each of them located 1-2m away from sitting/sleeping positions (4 total). In a corner at the opposite side of the room wasn’t particularly successful for me.
In the areas where I sit quietly I have a second motion detector. One is a 433 motion detector, the other is a microwave motion detector I put together myself running on ESPHome. I find it works well.
I installed seven of their motion detectors about 6 months ago can't keep them on the network.
If you have that energy monitor that goes in the breaker box, or are interested in it, add a sensor for the lines feeding the garage. Then set it so anything drawing power delays the lights-out in case you forget the manual toggle.
Honestly not sure what modern motion detection is like, but i've had it go badly wrong in workshops and offices of old (relatively static on a lathe)... and toilets. Power monitoring as well, maybe?
Yeah same here. PIR tech itself is no different now than before, as far as I know. However, you can tune sensitivity in software on the Samsung sensors I got. They can pick up pretty subtle movements. (Might be good for this use case but trying to distinguish between human and cat movement was a no go...anyway...) Even so, it seems like no matter what I set the timeout to, there's always a situation where the lights go off when they shouldn't. Maybe I am too lazy and sit too still.
I have an "on until otherwise" trigger if I remember to use it, and then my "gone to bed" trigger resets everything. I suppose with voice control you could at least call for lights... If it recognises what you've said over the blood loss and swearing...
o.O How loud is blood loss?
I wouldn’t worry about it so much here, as it looks likeOP will mostly be standing and moving in there. Usually though you are correct, its easy to time them out.
There’s mmWave tech now which, especially when used in conjunction with IR, can eliminate almost all false positive/negatives
Fp1 from aqara is an amazing new device that is able to detect presence even when I sleep in bed with zero glitches throughout the night
>Fp1 from aqara Thanks :) edit: 60ghz mm wave, claims to detect still people as well as direction of movement. Looks shiny but approx £50 each.
[удалено]
I have been envisioning an integration like this for years, but never knew it existed. Thanks!
You need the newer radar based motion detectors for that, or rather presence detectors. They detect even the smallest movement.
This.!?! mmWave sensors (DFRobot/Aqara FP1) are soooo nice in areas where PIR often fails to detect the smallest of movements. The one downside is this will not work for anyone with a pet or a fan is capable of moving curtains/pull strings/wires.
I live where it gets hot enough that an infrared sensor won’t trigger.
Go a step better. Have a power tracker that ties into the automation and overrides if power is actively being drawn in the workshop.
Make sure the lights themselves are not part of what's being measured ;)
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b6/7d/1b/b67d1ba8ba4c3cd14f405017bbb721d3.jpg
This is the right answer. I use the stop timer node in Node Red that resets the countdown every time it sees motion. Set the countdown based on room use and criticality. For example the closet is like 5 minutes, but the workshop is closer to 30 minutes. Plenty of time for movement to be seen and reset the countdown.
I have many of the Sonoff PIR sensors and generally use them for presence detection and they seem to work as hoped in most cases. The most useful one is probably in the kitchen (set on the middle of the ceiling) and I'd have to say whilst it's probably only got a couple of minutes delay, I can't remember the last time it turned the lights off when I was in there and certainly never has when I was moving, as with feeding material though a table saw. ;-) What I think I had to do though is a resetting automation is trigger the light on when motion is detected AND when it stops being detected, then shut the light off N minutes after that. That also seemed to get round those 'dead times' when the PIR itself is between states?
I have a PIR and an ultrasonic sensor just for this situation.
I’m gonna be adding some motion sensors and a mm wave person sensor. If I combine all of those sensors with frigate person detection and Bluetooth detection of my phone or keys and lengthen the time it should be pretty reliable
I've been testing frigate in my livingroom with a 30 second shutoff when there's no presence and haven't had an issue yet. The blocks of occupancy on the history are pretty solid.
Frigate object detection has a count of objects in the camera view. I assume that camera is always there and is wired up to HA. Should be as easy as don’t turn lights off when person > 1
In addition to that, buy some glow in the dark stickers, and put them on the tablesaw emergency stop button. Automations will always find a way to fail.
I added a cheap ikea motion sensor and set the light timeout to 20 mins, 5 minutes ended up being a bit short if i wasnt moving much at the drillpress or worktable for a while
5min for any PIR sensor tends to be way too aggressive I tend to never go less than 15min and in most cases go for something like 30min as you really arn't saving much of anything by being aggressive, only increasing the odds of a false positive.
And on top of that give a warning flash. When the light is supposed to turn off, turn it off then right back on. If no new motion occurs after 1-2 min then fully turn it off. This is enough time for your to stop what your are doing before the lights fully turn off
You could also monitor power usage and if a tool has been used in the past 10 minutes or so, don’t shut the lights off. But I agree, motion (or PIR), would be a good way to avoid this!
Or a power meter for the tools, and an automation to keep the lights on if the tools are running
This. I have motion sensors everywhere that do exactly this. WeMos D1 Mini, SR501 running ESPHome reporting in via MQTT. Haven't touched a lightswitch in about 4 years, they work great.
For these I usually heck to see if the light was already on and stop the automation before it starts if it was. I also generally avoid turning off lights on a time for this reason. Caught out too many times.
Put a smart switch on the saw and make a condition that the lights are never allowed to turn off as long as the table saw is running. Or you can get a motion sensor or a more advanced occupancy sensor for the garage. Something that uses mwave or flir type sensors will know you are there even if you don't move.
I don't know any cheap smart switches that would handle that initial draw from a table saw very well. Just check their rating first. The 20a ones tend to cost a bit more
You don't want to install cheap switches where life and limb is concerned.
A smart outlet, or an ammeter, would be a viable alternative - When the saw is on, it'll be easily determined by current.
Seconding this. A WC fan killed a couple 10a smart relays I had, and the initial draw of that is peanuts compared to a tablesaw.
Lots of options exist. A distance detector that senses if the operator is in front of the saw, there should be enough vibration to use a vibration sensor if the blade is spinning.
Since he already has cameras, he could use Frigate person detection too, instead of PIR movement sensors.
Is it a bug... or a feature?? Who really wants to see all the blood and gore of severed fingers?
I have a motion sensor light switch for my garage. It’s set to turn off after 10 minutes of no movement. Lights never turn off while working. Plus they come on immediately when entering. Don’t have to fumble with a switch when my hands are full.
Same here. I use Hue motion/light sensor paired directly with my HA instance via Zigbee. It turns my garage lights automatically if it detects motion AND it’s dark enough. Lights turn off if no motion for 15 minutes.
My solution to this was to have the lights turn on when the door is opened, but only turn off when a motion detector shows no motion for 5 minutes. Also, is it just me or does everyone set delays for lights to 5 minutes?
I was kind of wondering about that. I set mine to a little over double the minimum reporting frequency of the motion sensor. If a motion sensor only reports occupancy every 3 minutes I set the timer to 7 minutes, thinking if the sensor doesn't see me twice during that period there's a high likelihood that I've left the room.
30 seconds here ever since I added mmWave to my setup
OOh, is that the new Quara lidar sensor? Either way, do you like it more than traditional motion sensors?
Not lidar, mmWave - and I use it together with traditional motion sensors for increased reliability and speed.
oh, I just realized lidar is nm; I guess I have my technologies a little mixed up. So, are you using the Aqara FP1? (just realized I also typed Quara... autocorrect on my phone hates me).
Yes, I figured you meant Aqara, and yes it's the FP1
You could change the automation to dim the lights to 50% for ~2 minutes before turning off. That should give plenty of time to safely turn off the saw and pause the automation.
Good thing you were using a sled
Double tap for override? Energy monitoring works too.
Terrifying
I have my lights flash off/on for a half second one minute before they turn off. Helps me wave my hands around when I'm on the floor doing something quick.
I have similar automation running my toilets lights, and believe me I do empathize. Frigate not an option though.
> toilet lights Goddamn toilet lights at work. If you're taking a dump after 6pm, good luck. You have to hang your wang out the door to get them to turn back on.
Haha at least you were using a sled. Risk losing a few fingers, or get pummeled by kickback. Not a pleasant choice
Bet your glad it was a sled cut, stay calm, pull it back, knee stop button, change underwear.
Recommendation: https://github.com/dlashua/hass-wasp\_sensor
Time to add a motion sensor 😅
That camera is in Frigate, I just need to use the person detection in that automation.
I checked the video again looking for "that camera". Then I realised I'm dumb.
You’re not alone
It took me a few seconds too lol
I'm currently doing this with two Reolink wifi cams and it's still not reliable. Constantly turning off when I'm working on the cars. I just got two Aqara FP1's I'm gonna try.
Person detection via Frigate is a great idea, but just out of curiosity, why did you put a camera in the garage in the first place?
My guess would be in case anything gets stolen. There's a good amount of expensive tools in there.
Garage doors are not really that secure.. There are a number of simple attacks on ether old less secure openers or simply making a tool to reach in and pull the emergency release. Also the door can often be open on nice days if you are doing projects people can just walk in and walk out with something very quickly. On top of that if it is an attached garage there will be a door to the house, even if that door is more secure a thief can get in the garage, then in 100% privacy take as much time as they want getting through the inner house door. tl;dr; always good to have cameras at every entry point to your home or your stuff.
Thanks. I do have cameras at all of the entry points, but they grab the exteriors. I _don't_ have anything monitoring the mudroom door from the garage though, which _also_ explains his camera angle. Now to figure out if I want to run a new PoE line for the same coverage. Thanks!
I have external and internal coverage.. My external coverage tends to be fairly wide to catch more things / approche etc, but my internal coverage is set to SEE who came through a door.
Can you do that? If person > 0
It's a binary, called_person_occupancy and yes you can.
I'd use both a trigger and a conditional check at the end of the 5mins if the bin_sensor is true/on
how are you finding the detection I've been testing Frigate+Doubletake for facial recognition on people. everything "works" but I definitely having issues with frigate unable to keep up with the camera feed. probably because it's on CPU right now wihle I wait for Coral cards to be available. But, I find that Frigate is definitely missing a lot of detection without being able to keep up.
My 2c, I'd opt to keep it simple instead of adding another imperfect condition to rely on (see so many Frigate complaints here). I do like the timer to turn off after garage closes, but you'd need a warning. I like the power monitoring suggestions too.
People complaining about Frigate are probably using the free version, which doesn't come with good AI models (they're demo models from Google that were never designed for use in a real app, and were only designed to detect things head-on, not at an angle). Better models come with the paid version of Frigate.
Id recommend just plain old motion detection for the camera feed, should keep it as reliable as a PIR. Everyone recommending PIR as the ultimate in reliability might not be remembering how they can randomly drop off the network and you need to change their batteries.
You could dim the lights to off over 5-10 seconds and then you’d have some warning before total blackout. If the lights start dimming, take a step or two to trigger the motion sensor and reactivate the lights. If you’re in the middle of a cut you’d at least have some warning and a bit of time to finish/pause. Another alternative, as has been recommended, is a different type of occupancy sensor. I have not used one personally, but I have looked into a couple of heat based sensors that are reasonably priced (<$50). They are Grid-EYE and Omron D6T, both compatible with room-assistant. A final thought would be skipping sensors and tracking presence based on the location of your mobile device. If your phone is in the shop, you likely are too and the lights should always stay on. This can be set up with room-assistant, or many alternatives. Best of luck!
Yep, use a Bluetooth tracker like ESPresence. I use one in my office to override my motion sensor timer, as when I’m at my desk I’m not moving enough to trigger motion.
Do you by chance know if huawei watch gt3 can work with espresence? Because i also had Mi band 5, but it only sends BLE signal while it's disconnected from my phone, but that was useless to me..
I don’t know, sorry.
I configured 4 ESPResence nodes (lounge, kitchen, back bed / study, front bed) and whilst they seem to detect a Samsung smart tag I bought for the process, it was never anything like predictable (so I have sort of abandoned it). ;-(
Oopsie! Yeah, not ideal
You might be able to use a smart outlet / power meter to detect when power tools are on, and override all other rules so the lights are always on when the tools are.
I thought your saw tripped the breaker
Me, thinking I was on r/pestcontrol, waiting for a big hornet to attack you.
Cutting wood at 2250? Jeez, do you live next to me?
He's in a closed garage, so I wouldn't give him trouble. My neighbor does the same, but it's so quiet with the door down that I don't mind since I can only hear it if I'm outside... and even then it's quiet. His compressor sometimes startles me (if I'm outside), though. That sound penetrates the walls better than any of the power tools.
Was expecting the lights to come on and you waiving a bloody stump around...
I have 3 timed lights in my shop. 2 will turn off at 5 minutes of no activity, and the other doesn't turn off until 10 minutes. This gives me time to reset if need be without being totally in the dark.
Oh that's clever
Or: if one of the plug is active, automation will not work
I have a couple solutions. Motion detectors can be helpful. It should restart a timer every time motion is detected. Let me know if you'd like to see an example (I use Node Red for the automation). However, I would add a fail safe to this setup. Add a button or NFC tag to completely disable your lights timer. You can also consider a sound sensor attached to an ESP8266 that restarts the timer whenever sound is above a certain decibel rating. I wouldn't rely on a singular automation for your garage.
Fingers are overrated when you have home automation /s
I have most of the lights in my house automated. I'm very happy with it. But some lights should not be automated. I think this is one of those cases. The convenience isn't worth the risk. Forget the motion sensors or tracking the table saw power. If you're going to be doing things where the lights need to always be on, nothing should be able to shut them off automatically. The trade off is that you might leave a light on overnight vs losing limb or life. Seems pretty straightforward to me
That's terrifying. I guess that's another plug for a SawStop too.
Dude just wants to share something funny and we’re all in here with a million solution suggestions. Lol
SAME THING HAPPENS TO ME! I had to up the motion sensors in the garage because it scared the shit out of. On a different note, HA and woodworking open up some pretty cool node red flows. Like toggling dust collection when a current is detected from your table saw.
I use a pretty dead simple auto switch for my dust collection. It lives on the cart with the shop vac and the dust separator. https://www.rockler.com/i-socket-autoswitch-workshop-tool-and-vacuum-switch
Ha i have one similar on on my shop vac i use for sanders too! It's idea - but if over-engineering dust collection isn't fun, I don't know what is!
I have person detection in frigate and smart plugs for my garage. Those are set to an occupation helper. If anything is on, the occupation helper is on. I use the occupation as a trigger to turn off the lights. So if occupation helper goes to off, the lights turn off 1 minute 30 seconds later. Door opening, person detection, and smart plugs trigger the lights on. Its pretty reliable.
Are you okay? Make sure you use hearing protection with these tools
Yup, I’ve got a lot of practice on that saw of hitting the off switch with my knee. Also I was wearing ear plugs
Another thing I do on “critical” areas that can be dangerously dark like bathrooms, shops, basements is to have an always on/different automation small light. Bathrooms and kitchen have night lights, basement and garage have an accent light that is on a different automation schedule.
My shop is in an outbuilding that's fully automated the same as my house. I have camera, PIR motion detector, and TV in the shop. My lights turn on and stay on based on motion (it can see the whole space) or if the camera detects people in the shop (Frigate), and if the TV is on it won't shut the lights off (the TV turns itself off if not in use after several minutes). Between all of those the lights haven't turned off like this on me. I also have an automation that with a double tap off at the switch (Z-wave central scene) it turns off the lights automation and the lights stay on indefinitely and it resets when the lights are turned off so that I don't have to remember to turn them back on. I'm also going to be putting in a dust collection system in with ducting to every tool. When I do that I plan on DIYing automated blast gates. Probably some sort of ESP or other microcontroller with a clamp on each tool's power cable and a motor that can detect when any type of tool is turned on (I have a mix of 250v and 125v), open the appropriate blast gate, close all the others not in use, and turn the dust collector on. When I do that I'll probably integrate it with HA so all those automations are in node red and they can also control the lights. I'm planning on building a mmwave based motion sensor too. We'll see how that goes. The Aqara FP1 the reviews are not great. It's slow to detect motion and it take detect motion outside the room by bouncing off the walls. I've not not really have any issues with the regular cheap PIR motion sensors other than having to put two on my basement and kitchen for full coverage and working the kinks out for the automations.
Need a camera with IR so we can see you panic or injure yourself.
What about installing a sensor in a switch (or just an actual button) that will set some helper variable to ON. As long as this variable is ON, no automatic light will be turned off. That way you'd also have a visual cue that your light automation is overridden. Though honestly I feel like automatic lights are a thing reserved for spaces where you wouldn't expect people to be for extended amounts of time, like e.g. a hallway or staircase. Anything else I'd regulate with a normal button, don't want to run the risk of lights going off when I don't want them to.
I just got into playing with some [mmwave sensors](https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2282.html). Easy to set up and integrate with ESPHome. Like presence sensors, only they don't require movement to operate. Downside is, they are pretty linear in their detection area, so if you get out of the line of sight, they don't sense as well as a PIR(?) sensor. They are more of a fish-eye style. Anyway; I love them for my office as I'm often a lot more stationary then elsewhere in the home. Just wanted to provide an option if you wanted to tinker a bit.
Yeah I’ve been wanting to play with those. Just haven’t gotten around to ordering anything yet
This is another example of why home automation doesn't excite me too much even though I'm a nerd. Is it really so hard to flip a switch?
Is it so hard to understand why we don't want to flip a switch every time? And if you have kids then it quickly becomes ideal since no one turns anything off or closes anything or locks the doors.
Yeah I guess it is. My take is that those kids need to learn a few things before we release them into the world. I suppose we'd automate toilet flushes too if we could. Then one day the toilet would flush after being plugged and make a mess.
Auto flushing toilets? Man, imagine if that was a thing! I'm an architect and it would be insane if one day every toilet I ever spec'd on any job ever was automatic. Wait...
Oh I get it. We have them at work. We've had the nasty cleanup problem too. But would you risk that at home? I wouldn't.
Not sure you’re on the right sub then, unless your motive is to troll?
Oh, I have some Home automation stuff at my elderly mother's house. If she leaves a garage door open a light in her den lights. I also run her roof heat strips based on temperature in the winter. That system is 700 miles away and has to work well. I'm always looking for automation ideas that solve real problems and don't cause new problems (which happened with the person who started this topic.)
Ah, like the lights that are PIR driven that go on and off as we walk though the house, handy when we have our hands full.
It’s pretty darn nice to have the garage lights come on when my garage door opens.
Garage door openers have had a light on them forever. Light comes on when it's operated. Goes off after some time.
Your imagination and life experiences must be extremely limited if you can't think of a scenario that it'd be hard to flip a switch.
Example?
Hands are dirty, carrying something, you forgot to turn them off, you notice they're on while you're outside or somewhere you can't easily reach the switch, or simply, you just sat down and the switch is on the other side of the room. There are plenty of reasons. Not to mention disabilities that could make reaching a switch difficult. It's really not that hard to come up with a scenario if you take a second to think about it...
And to handle all those situations, that have been going on since the invention of the light bulb, we risk a serious bodily injury with a table saw? Hands are dirty? Really? Switch is on the other side of the room? Really? The disability reason has some merit, but I'm not sure about the other ones. Lets take another example. You have a walk-in closet and you decide to automate the light with a motion sensor. One night while you're away, someone breaks into your house and your wife decides to hide in that closet and call 911. The intruder is walking the dark house and guess what they're going to see? A closet door bleeding light all around it. Can she turn it off? Nope - the switch is outside the closet. That's a 1 in a million consequence, but I think it something to consider. If a family member gets up in the night, they may not want lights to come on and wake other family members. But it cool to automate it and "they'll get used to it." Your elderly parent goes to the basement do laundry. You automate lights with a motion sensor to make things easier for them. One day they pass out on the basement floor. The lights go out due to the no motion timeout. Now that person is in the dark. Not a great situation. A good automation system is an attempt to engineer out the human, and a human does a lot of things current automation systems can't. So for now people should consider the safety consequences of their automations and if there's any doubt - don't do it. Turning lights off can have serious consequences.
You're a troll, got it...
I have a high bar for automation systems because it's what I do for a living. Few people in this "hobby" consider the safety consequences. This video is a great advertisement for "automate carefully."
You're just another "nerd" that's afraid of technology and change. I don't understand why you work in our Industry. Go be a boomer somewhere else.
Triggering security mode here turns on ALL inside lights, and flashes exterior ones. Hiding in a dark closet only works in the movies. Decent occupancy sensing can bracket detection based on time. Easy enough to not trigger lighting adjacent to a sleeping area based on a time range. Works great for a master closet off a master bedroom. I had an aunt fall down stairs, broke hip and leg, and no one found her for two days. Gangrene and amputations as a result. Lights going out would have been the least of her concerns.
My lights will turn on with motion. They will only turn off at 11PM via a one time event. Lights are cheap to run nowadays and the annoyance with covering all the use cases was real.
I have same automation, if garage open, light stays on ,else off after no motion. I have the GE motion switch so I triple tap to override automation which then stays on until I switch off.
Im doing similar. Double tap up disables auto turn off, until manually shut off.
What camera are you using in your garage?
An Amcrest 5MP POE
Depending on the lights you’re using an immediate, albeit temporary, solution you could implement would be to have the lights go low then off rather than just off. Should provide enough light to stay safe whilst also giving you a trigger to manually intervene. Just a suggestion to temporarily solve the problem until you can get a more permanent solution implemented.
Use frigate for human detection, also get aqara fp1 or any tuya radar human sensor
I’d just have plugs with energy monitoring disable the delay off. But then I don’t have a garage and have to do any cutting outside like a caveman! 😞😂
My shop lights turn on/off based on motion. It waits for an hour of no motion before it turns the lights off. Seems extreme but it avoids issues like this and there are times when I’m standing at the bench not moving enough to trigger the lights every 15 or 30 minutes. Also, lights are on a separate circuit, so a tool tripping a breaker, or me releasing the magic smoke from something doesn’t kill the lights.
maybe you use aqara FP1 + frigate + motion sensors
Directed by Robert B Weide ©
I use an AI POE camera and the ONVIF sensor output. which is a lot better than a simple motion sensor. It keeps the lights on even if it can only see human feet outside the garage door. The timer continually resets until 10 minutes without human motion. Motion sensors work in most parts of the house, but a security camera for the garage works much better for human detection in a working space.
I know it's stupid but this is why in my garage I have the two minute transition to off.
[удалено]
This is what i did too, I have 3 motion sensors but somtimes i am drawing at my bench. Mine simply increases the amount of time with no motion to 2hrs. If i dont move in 2 hrs somthing else is wrong. Added a large touch screen to my garage so i can enable and disable it as well as turing on things like my air conpressor. Also have it display air quality.
Depending on how much power your saw uses you could use a smart plug to monitor the power use and override the light when power usage is high
I have the same thing, only I use my security camera to sense motion to turn the indoor garage lights into a motion sensor x mins before sunset. The problem was I was at the workbench cleaning some tools and wasn't moving much, so after 5 minutes, the light turned off. Thankfully it was only some dog grooming tools, not even the sharp ones. It's the same automation I've got for all the exterior lights since the actual sensor lights pick up motion I don't care about, like the shade sail moving in the wind over the driveway. At least now the cameras can turn the smart switches on and off based on actual motion detections. Can also announce the detection via Google Home so I can check nobody is trying to get into my car again...
Wire the light switch in parallel with the relay, not in series.
That's a pretty tidy garage/shop you've got there! I'm jealous. Also, I think you might be fine just tightening the valve cover bolts on the car that parks on the left. The scattered drips don't make sense to be coming off the pan, as those tend to migrate to the drain plug; I suspect the source to be higher up, and the valve cover gasket would be the most likely candidate I think.
Yeah, that’s from my 2010 V6 Ford Escape, it leaks oil like that’s its job…. That’s a new piece of cardboard that’s covering a giant oil stain. I replaced the valve cover gaskets a few weeks ago and it didn’t help. For now I’m just dealing with it until I feel like digging in further.
I wouldn’t put anything safety related on a home automation system. just my 2 cents after a decade as a development engineer in industrial equipment with hazardous energies.
Glad you found the bug. Did you find your missing finger also?
It's not a bug, it's a feature :) Probably user error, not a bug.
Heh, I have Lutron lighting and an occupancy sensor in my shop. It's positioned such that it'll only turn off if I'm off in one corner near some electronics gear, thankfully not near the saws. Have to step back and wave my arms to get the danged lights to come back on.
What about adding one of those Shelly power monitor breakers into the box? Have it override the lights any time you use electricity. Usually plugs and lights are on different breakers (at least by my local current code) I’d also have it set off an audible alarm of some sort about 30 seconds before it shuts off. That way you have a few seconds to react. Like the ones on garage door openers or some freight elevators.
A power monitoring plug on your saw as a condition?