Motion sensor turning light on

#1

Im my bathroom I have a motion sensor and z-wave light switch
The pistorn will turn the light on 100% between 7am and 11.59 pm and only 8% the rest of the time for 5 min and then off.
Problem is if Im say taking a shower I have to keep turning on the light after each 5 min period. I added another condition “master bathroom switch is not on” but that does not work because the motion sensor turns on the light before I can switch it on.
How can I keep the light on when I want
Thanks
Rick

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#2

Hi Rick,

I had the same exact problem.
If your motion sensor can see you in the shower then here is one of the solutions:

Instead of waiting 5 minutes and turning lights off, use “stays inactive.”

it goes like this:
IF time is this and that
IF dimmer is not ON
IF motion sensor 7 “changes to active” (instead of IS active)
then do this do that

(second part of the piston)
IF time is this and that
IF dimmer is not ON
IF motion sensor 7 STAYS in active for 5 minutes
then do this do that

With your piston regardles of you are in the shower or even running around in the bathroom, lights will go OFF because of NEVER CANCEL you have.

with my example, if motion sensor changes to inactive, 5 minute timer will start, within that five minutes, if sensor is triggered, the count down will stop until motion stops, again 5 minutes count down will start.

So if motion sensor can pick motion while in the shower, you will have no problem until you are done in there and leave the room.

Here is my piston I use for guest bathroom.
21%20AM

you can still keep the switch but probably you won’t need it anymore (unless there is a blind spot in your bathroom motion sensor.) I have about 4 motion sensors in the M. Bathroom and no blind spots, we don’t even use the swt’ches anymore.

Note : You won’t see “trigger lightning icon” in my piston. Due to a browser problem i have.

#3

Thanks for the suggestion. My motion sensor unfortunatly does noe see me when in the shower.
What I would like is if the motion sensor sees motion then would reset the timer. You mentioned that will not happen because I have it set to never cancel. Before I had that I was having trouple the lights would not turn off so I posted here and someone suggested that I do that

#4

I have similar issue with a few motion sensors.
Sometimes (like when you are in the shower) you want the timer to be longer than 5 mins but you dont want to change it because it will mean that for the rest of the day the timer will be longer too ?

If you want variation you have to either extend the timer or have some way of telling the piston to do something different.

Have seen others use a virtual switch and tell alexa or GH to turn on “Shower time” then for your bathroom piston say leave lights on for 20 mins if virtual switch “Shower Time” is on.