First of all, good job for the work done on this app I really appreciate it!
I have the same need, I’m building a home-made alarm system composed by a motion sensor and a 120db siren connected to a smart plug.
When the sensor detects something the smart plus is actived and the siren works for 5 minutes then automatically stops, an alexa actions triggers also a notification and an email with ifft).
I want to configure a dimmer switch to turn on the sensor (=activate the alarm, when I leave home) and turn off the sensor (=disable the alarm when I come back).
Currently I’m forced to use the app each time and it is not efficient.
I would really appreciate the same feature, to activate/deactivate a particular motion sensor as an assignable action.
My case is far more mundane. I have a motion sensor in my bedroom, to provide a bit of guiding nightlight if one of us gets out of bed to pee. However, if I were to use the dimmer switch to turn on the lights manually, I’d want to disable the motion sensor, for the duration of whatever it is I Have To Deal With.
As in
Button 1, First press:
Set scene in Bedroom
Disable Bedroom motion sensor
Button 0, First press:
Switch off Bedroom
Activate Bedroom motion sensor
As far as I can reason, the requested feature is necessary for that purpose.
If you are interrested in the use case with the alarm please not that I replaced the Hue Smart Plug by an Amazon Smart plug, the Hue one automatically starts enabled after 2 power shut downs whereas the Amazon plug in this case stays disabled.
@Thomas Any idea when you will implement the feature? by the way is it currently technically doable ?
It is definitely possible on a Hue bridge. I just need to find some time to add this to the app. There are lots of feature requests so it can take some time.
No, but this is how to control A Sensor with an api request. Meanwhile i have create A temp Button with this request in A 3rd Part Software (mediola) to have a not Good but working solution. If Thomas create an function in Essentials it would be work much better.
This Post was A funny “we want this” reminder
I am sure Thomas is doing his best to create an all-around good software for us. So we have to wait and we will wait because It’s One of the best Software for hue.
I would also love this functionality!
There’s another scenario for me, too: I do have one motion sensor in my hall way and i want it to turn hall way AND kitchen on with nightlight (no door there) and when i stay in the kitchen (sensor doesn’t see me) i want to turn the lights brighter by dimmer switch but still want the hall way light to turn off automatically. Hope you understand what i try to explain (native german haha).
Will it also be possible?
This feature will be added in the next update. Version 1.18.0 on Android and 1.12.0 on iOS. It should be available within a few days, beta testers will receive the update earlier.
It is called “toggle sensor” and you can switch on or off a motion sensor.
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
Hi @Thomas , great news!
May I know if it will be possible to add several “toggle sensor” actions for different sensors in the same group of button actions?
For example to do this scenario : when I press “I” button switch on 2 sensors and when I press “O” switch off the 2 sensors?
Another question, as far as you know is it possible to use other sensors or only the Philips ones are managed?
It is possible to add multiple toggle sensor actions on the same button. Your scenario should work fine.
On a Philips Hue bridge only Philips Hue motion sensors are supported. Third party sensors are not visible in the app so cannot be used here. On a deCONZ gateway you should be able to use this action for other motion sensors as well.
Hi @Thomas I installed the beta v1.8 to test the new feature discussed in this topic and I found what I think is a bug, when I the dimmer switch action to switch on the motion detection of a sensor is triggered (the motion detection was disabled before) it automatically generates a motion detection event (and that’s not cool in my alarm enable/disable need ). Do you know why it works like that? is that a bug? if not do you know if there is a workaround ?
Thanks a lot!
Update : I have done some more tests, I confirm the bahavior that I described above but I also noticed that sometimes it does not trigger a motion detection event when the sensor is switched on, I’m wondering if somehow the sensor keeps in memory the last detection and if there is not enough time elapsed between the last event and the switch on it will trigger the last motion detection event, what do you think ?
Update 2 : I have done some new tests this afternoon and I think I have found the “pattern”, the sensor seems to keep in memory a motion detection for 10 seconds (even if the motion detection switched off it detects and keep in memory the motion but simply not trigger an event), if the motion detection is switched on before the 10 seconds then it automatically triggers a detection event, if you wait 10 seconds before to activate it will then work fine.
I think it’s a built-in behavior, not sure @Thomas can do something about that.
@Thomas : a workaround would be to introduce a “wait” action (configurable in minutes/seconds) in the button actions, such action exists on Amazon Alexa routines for example, this way it would be possible to start the actions by a “wait” of few seconds (to let the sensor “forget” the last motion) and then activate the sensor. What do you think ?
I had something similar with the standard app, when the motion sensor activated a lamp and it went off, then 10 seconds later, despite motion, no lamp came on. Remedy created only in the Labs the sensor couple. Maybe this is something similar…
I see what you mean, I can reproduce the behaviour. I will have to look into this further, but I think there is not much I can do about this. Thanks for looking into this and providing detailed feedback.
A wait action seems like the easiest solution. See the following feature request: Start timer from a switch
I want to use the same functionality on the top floor but I use 2 sensors there that work together using the Hue Labs ‘Couple Sensor’ since it’s quite a lengthy area. I now Switch Off and On both sensors as you describe here and so far it seems to work. I just wonder; since ‘Couple Sensor’ requires both sensors to be set up on the official Hue app and not in Hue Essentials (so far I haven’t found similar functionality in Hue Essentials) I wonder if it’s not a requirement that the sensors you switch off/on with this new functionality are set up in Hue Essentials? Do you expect any issues or unreliable behavior in combination with ‘Couple Sensor’ from Hue Labs?
