I also use illuminance from SmartWeather Station for my pistons. It’s been Ok. I created a piston that sets global @darkoutside and @darkinside variables that act as triggers and conditions for other stuff. I just set the threshold for @darkinside a bit higher so indoor lights go on before outdoor lights. I don’t know how often it refreshes on its own, but it seemed like it got really dark before lights would start to work, so I created a piston that refreshes it every ten minutes, but only around sunrise and sunset.
Reliable LUX for Piston Execution
Rizlah
#42
Are you in the US. because I’ve heard a few people on that side of the pond suggest it works ok. I’m in the U.K. and it seems very slow and sporadic at updating. Sometimes going from 7500 to 0 in one update cycle.
Equis
#43
Oh, yikes. Yes, I’m in the US. It was making some big jumps before I forced a refresh around times I wanted it to pay more attention to whether or not it’s light out.
Equis
#45
Here you go… The Temerature Sensor 1 is my SmartWeather Station device. The motion sensors are mostly around my kitchen, back door, and stairs. High traffic areas where we want lights to go on when it’s dark.
Checking the logs, it looks like it only refreshed four times this morning using this method. Good to see I’m not hammering the weather server. That’s why I did it this way. 
Rizlah
#46
looking at smart weather right now, it records that the lux outside in my area is 2500, its cloudy, rainy, foggy, you name it, pretty bad. My sensor that I bought says its only 450. this is why I moved away from it as in my area its just not reliable
Equis
#47
Yeah, I did find that it had different values from the Weather Underground source, so I had to adjust my lux thresholds in my “Is it dark?” piston. Personally, I still feel it’s better than using sunrise/sunset with offsets.
Rizlah
#48
yeah definitely, I just wanted a bit more accuracy so decided to buy my own sensor that provided lux
Rizlah
#49
What my sensor has reported all day. I capture it into a Fuel Stream at 5 minute intervals, however the reporting and capture mechanism used by my pistons is very different.
