Looking to control lights when we leave the house

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
New to WC, but was able to set up a piston to turn my front porch light on, using presence and switch triggers, and off after 5 minutes, between sunset and sunrise. Now I want the porch lights to turn on when me or my wife leave the house, but only for 5 minutes. I can do that through the similar piston using the motion sensor on my Ring doorbell and presence (ie. When it detects motion and I’m in the house, the light turns on), but this would mean it would also turn on when people walk by or when someone rings the doorbell. I only open the door when someone I know rings, or amazon, so don’t want the lights to auto turn on unless my wife or I leaving the house.

Any pointers would be very greatly appreciated!

I have the ring doorbell, ring camera, smartthings hub and a WiFi smart switch.

#2

hi there, welcome to Webcore world:))

You can do that by using your presence sensor as a condition.
ie:

IF motion sensor changes to ACTIVE 
AND
IF presence sensor IS HOME 
Then 
Turn on the lights.

Now with this example piston, when motion changes to active, the piston look for condition, if and when, condition is TRUE the lights will turn on. If you are not home - assuming presence sensor registered you as AWAY then the lights won’t turn ON.

When you come back home - again assuming presence sensor registered HOME on time - the lights will turn ON.

#3

Oh and the sunset part:

IF motion sensor changes to ACTIVE
AND
IF time is between sunset and sunrise
AND
IF presence sensor is HOME
Then turn the lights on

For the turn OFF part, new users tend to use WAIT 5 minutes,
but instead I highly recommend using,

IF motion sensor STAYS INACTIVE for 5 minutes
Then
Turn the lights OFF
#4

Thanks for this, but wouldn’t this also trigger the lights if we’re both home and someone else comes to the door, because the motion detector and presence will both trigger?

#5

you are right…
Basically you want motion sensor or st home to recognize you.

Smart home MUST know when to behave differently to the same setup. For this behaviour change to happen you need to give it a trigger.

Only workaround I can think of is using something else as a trigger. Can be an extra switch, echo device or something. When you activate that the house goes into DO NOT DISTURB MOD (lets say)
and your piston will have do not disturb switch as a condition.

same piston before but,

IF motion sensor changes to ACTIVE 
AND
IF donotdisturn switch is OFF
Then 
Turn on the lights.

you need to turn ON or OFF before you come out or come back in.

Presense sensor can be COMING BACK HOME trigger but it can’t be leaving the house trigger because you are already in side.

If anyone else wants to jump in please do so, I’d love to learn if there is a different way of doing this (with only motion sensor, presense sensor and a switch)

#6

or you can simply use an open/close sensor for the door. In the case lights will turn ON only if door opens.

#7

Oh that’s a good idea… Would I be able to use the Ring door sensor that’s already installed on that door? It didn’t pop up as a device on ST, but it’s possible I missed a step…?

#8

You mean as a contact sensor? that’s a NO…

I just checked mine and it has only 4 attributes you can monitor.

  • Motion
  • Mute
  • Battery
  • Button…

button, gave me an idea but not sure if it’s a good one:)

IF motion changes to active
AND
If time is between X and Y
With lights
WAIT 8 seconds
    IF frontdoor variable is = false (the button is not pushed)
    Then 
    Do turn ON the lights. (assuming who ever comes to your door they will ring the bell)

Another piston controls the variable frontdoor

If ring button is pushed
Set variable frontdoor = true
wait 5 minutes
Set variable frontdoor = false

Interesting…

#9

If you are not familiar with variables I can write the pistons for you (as a piston where you can simply download), and lets see if it works.

#10

That’s interesting, but would the light turn on as soon as my wife or I came outside? Ie. We come outside, I need the light to turn on while we lock the door and walk to the car on the driveway.

I appreciate the assistance btw. Learning a ton here!

#11

you are so welcome, I hope we can handle this without a open close sensor (but that is still your best bet)

That’s the catch… same 8 seconds will also apply to you.
You can try 3 seconds but that can be too early before someone pushes to door bell.

#12

or you can manully turn it on from inside but that kind a beats the whole purpose of a smart home :)))

#13

Boy, this is a tricky one… @Nrnrnr00, how opposed are you to the lights turning on if someone else comes to the door? What if it was someone you were expecting? What if you were home, but your wife wasn’t? Then the light wouldn’t turn on for her when she arrived. This would take several pistons and/or variables to take into account all these scenarios.

#14

tricky is the right word:))))

#15

How opposed are you to adding a door open/close sensor as @ike2018 suggested? That would be the easiest way to do what you want. There are some nice ones that hide in the door jam so they not very noticeable. That’s what I have on all my doors.

#16

Ok folks, against my original plan, I ended up buying 4 Xiaomi door sensors from someone this morning.

I can put one up on the door close to the Ring one, which should solve my issues… Right?

Anything I missed?

#17

Well, it will certainly help, but if you really don’t want the light coming on for strangers, but do want them on for expected visitors and your wife, it’s still kinda tricky. This will take some experimentation, so be patient.