Light count down timer help

#1

New to this whole thing.
I’d like to create a piston that turns on my lights by a door sensor trigger and then shuts off after 5 minutes unless the light switch is toggled, in which case the light stays on (I have a Leviton type switch). I’ve got the piston working to turn on the lights with the sensor and turn off after 5 minutes, but haven’t figured how to override the turning off of the lights. I have created a virtual switch but not sure how accomplish this… thanks!

#2

Which Levitron switch are you using? Are the lights that are turned on the ones that are controlled by the switch? The problem you are going to run into is that the switch is already on. So you can’t really turn it on again. Now, if it’s a dimmer, you could have them come on to 80% and then when you hit the up side of the dimmer they go above say 90% you could have the timer canceled after that. But if its a simple on-off, then nope, not going to work. You also don’t mention is the levitron switch is a smart switch or a “dumb” switch.

You should check out some of the example pistons here on the forum. They are very helpful.

#3

It’s a z-wave switch that toggles lights on and off. Some sort of count down timer triggered by a virtual switch when the sensor (door) is opened that turns off the light once timer is complete unless it is overridden by touching the switch should work… just not sure how to write that…

#4

No it won’t. Because the switch is already on. You can’t turn it on again. You touching the switch won’t be detected by ST.