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Author Topic: Detecting Motion when dark, but keeping on until movement stops.  (Read 2523 times)

dcranston

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Detecting Motion when dark, but keeping on until movement stops.
« on: February 02, 2010, 12:34:29 AM »

There seems to be an inherent problem with my EagleEye Motion Sensor: I can set it to only turn on/off a light when it's dark, or 24 hours/day.  Since I'm looking to turn on a light automatically in my kitchen when someone enters the room and it's dark.

This sounds great, until invariably once the sensor detects motion at night and turns the light on, it now no longer thinks its night and ignores motion.  Unfortunately, this means the motion sensor waits the specified amount of time and turns off the light after the delay.

What I really want is for the light to only turn on when it's dark, but to continue to stay lit while there is motion in the room.

Anyone have any tricks on how to get around this issue?  I've thought about having 2 x10 modules plugged into each other, one (the one closest to the outlet) turning on when one EagleEye detects darkness, the other set to detect motion 24hrs/day.  That way, the second sensor will send motion data all day, but will only succeed in making it through to the second x10 module when the first one is on, based on the darkness.  Seems like a pretty sad hack, and not sure how well x10 devices plugged into each other will actually work.

Any ideas or anyone encountered the same problem?
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eagle

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Re: Detecting Motion when dark, but keeping on until movement stops.
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2010, 01:01:47 AM »

Hi,

The bottom of the webpage below provides a comparo of the x10 sensors:
http://www.x10.com/products/x10_ms14a.htm

It appears that EagleEye Dusk/dawn function is automatic and isn't adjustable such that it operates only when it is dark. 

The ActiveEye model does what you are looking for.

r,
eagle
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dave w

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Re: Detecting Motion when dark, but keeping on until movement stops.
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2010, 12:42:25 PM »


This sounds great, until invariably once the sensor detects motion at night and turns the light on, it now no longer thinks its night and ignores motion.  Unfortunately, this means the motion sensor waits the specified amount of time and turns off the light after the delay.

What I really want is for the light to only turn on when it's dark, but to continue to stay lit while there is motion in the room.


Any ideas or anyone encountered the same problem?
Requires Conditional Logic. Do you have AHP and CM15A?  You would set your MS to detect "all the time" and use conditional logic in the macro to determine if it is light or dark by time (or use the "Light/Dark" sensor in second  MS to tell the macro if it is daylight or dark).
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