Same Motion Detector - different notification

#1

No piston to show because I’m at the “explore” stage.

I successfully placed a SmartThings motion sensor across the street in my mailbox. It works! I set up a quick piston that if there’s motion - I get a “mail” notification.

But there’s TWO of us. I would like a notification that says “You’ve Got Mail!” on the FIRST motion of the day, and then “Mail has been picked up!” on the SECOND motion of the day.

Optional difficulty: if I didn’t get the mail on, say, Tuesday, the first Motion on Wednesday would STILL be “You’ve got mail.” Or would it be? What if I got Tuesday’s mail on Wednesday morning before Wednesday’s delivery? Meh, that won’t happen often, the piston could probably reset. If I miss a delivery, I know enough to expect off-kilter messages if I get the previous days’ mail before that day’s delivery.

#2

Himmm nice project I love it.

If i were to do this (I actually might LOL)
I would setup up the piston with variables and split the day into two and every night everything is reset.

But for now here is a draft (If you are sure your mail always comes in the morning)

IF motion sensor changes to ACTIVE 
And _(Nested 2 if blocks now)_
     IF time is between 6am and 1pm
     Then 
     Send SMS "You've got mail"
     IF time is between 1.01pm and 11.59pm
     Then
     Send SMS "Mail has been picked up"

I’m not sure if your box would pick up more motions during the day??
But this draft still contains your difficulty of what if you pick up wednesdays mail on thursday morning???

I have to dig deeper for this one…Can you use mailmans phone as a presence sensor LOL :crazy_face::crazy_face::crazy_face::crazy_face::crazy_face::crazy_face:

#3

My mail actually comes MOST times late in the afternoon. Except sometimes when it comes around noon-ish! And MORE rarely she’ll come to my front door if I have a package that won’t fit. Unless she’s just dropping off a package and still puts the mail in the box. I’m pretty rural in NH!

LOL: “Excuse me while I affix this tracker to your mail Jeep. Or - if you would just download this app…” :slight_smile:

The box does not pick up any other motions - it only picks up a motion when someone opens the box - it’s heavy plastic, maybe that has something to do with it!

Your solution is neat but with the variable mail time… Yeah.

#4

Thinking out loud - A sim switch.
Can WebCore just change a sim Switch state without specifying off or on?

Motion triggers SimSwitch to change state (off to on, or on to off).

So when the mailwoman opens the mailbox, motion flips the sim switch to on.
If SimSwitch turns ON, then notify with: You’ve Got Mail!

Then when i get the mail, motion flips the sim switch (to off).
If Sim Switch turns OFF, then notify with: Mail Retrieved!

Switch turns off at midnight

I’m not worried about the rare times i won’t get mail and it’ll be out of sync if i get the mail in the morning. I can manually reset the switch if necessary.

But I don’t know if webcore can do that.

#5

I’ve been thinking about this since you posted LOL (walking around my mailbox, trying to figure out workarounds)

This can do that…
33%20AM

#6

damn i’m gonna go crazy…
There must be a decent way of doing this…

Besides him/her texting you LOL

#7

What about a variable that counts the time motion occurs with a delay (incase the mail person takes a couple minutes…

Variable motionMailbox
If Motion
wait 2 minutes
set motionMailbox + 1

Then When motion variable changes to 1 send message Mail arrived
Then When motion variable changes to 2 send message Someone got the mail
Then When motion variable changes to 3 send message that mail is already received

At 11 PM each day, set variable motionMailbox 0

This could get fun…

#8

Fu…k I give up:)))))

this is the only thing I could find and that will be a DIY project LOL

https://tinyurl.com/ygoy7lfp

#9

I know this isn’t right but here is a start…

Mail
Mail.png1178×1181 166 KB

#10

Hey that’s interesting!! That could do…

#11

I’m going to try this! I’ll report back!

#12

Well - maybe the darn thing doesn’t work at very cold (under 30F) temps? But the temperature part does? Oy!

#13

Do you see less then 30F where you live?

#14

Heh, oh very much so! I’m in New Hampshire - we’ll see in the negatives this Winter. It’s about 13F right now. :slight_smile:

#15

ops sorrryyy :astonished::astonished::astonished: :joy::joy::joy::joy:
the last 22 years I’ve been between Los Angeles and Hawaii,so it never occurred to me to check temp for the stuff:)))) Hell, I don’t even own a winter jacket:)

#16

I do roughly this myself, although I use a contact sensor instead of a motion sensor. Also, my *lexa plays the notification once per delivery day, “Mail was delivered at $time”.

Here’s my piston:

image
image.png1178×1043 55.7 KB

Here’s a summary of the design:
Define “Mail_state” variable, 0=No mail yet, 1=Mail was delievered, 2=*lexa spoke the delivery message
When the mailbox is open, set the variable to 1 (unless it’s already been delivered and announced (2))
Daily, reset the variable back to 0

Side topic:
I’ve wanted to build/buy a contact sensor that has a momentary button on it as well. The contact sensor portion would work like all others and trigger something when the door was opened. The momentary button would be pressed by the owner (or the owner’s significant other) to indicate that the mail was picked up. When programming, you could have a mail indicator bulb set when the mail is dropped off, but then cleared when the button is pressed. I’d say you could just toggle the light, but my mail arrives twice per day if I’m getting a package… the mail carrier does one round with boxes, and a second with the paper mail.

Third thought: How come someone doesn’t have an infrared beam sensor that could be placed on the top and bottom to detect the presence (or lack of) paper (which would break the infrared beam)?

#17

I’ve been looking for that (but zwave, zigbee or atleast wi-fi) forever…

#18

If I build it, I’ll send you one. Until then, two devices (one contact sensor, and one momentary button) might be the closest.

Also, I wondered if a pressure (weight) sensor placed on the mailbox’s mount could accomplish the same thing, but then you might run into rain/snow fooling the sensor.

#19

I’ll be more then happy to buy several of them from you:)
I have cats and that would be such a nice addition to the smart home…

#20

More tangents: Just got mail delivered, oddly enough. The notification was instant… normally by doorbell beats smartthings, but smartthings beat it today. I wonder if the bug that was fixed in the other thread also impacted message delivery. You may notice that my notification message says “Mailbox was opened at $time” - I’d get a notification 15-20 minutes after the event took place, and wanted to see how long it was taking for delivery.