I have several of the Jasco motion switches. The buttons do feel less responsive than the decora paddles, but also I rarely/never actually touch them since, well, motion detector.
Lol yeah I suppose that makes sense! XD
If this is still a feature for this switch @Eric_Inovelli you will want to ensure inverting the switch does not negatively impact motion sensing field of view.
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I have some ādumbā PIR switches that I put in our 1st floor powder room and similar bathroom in the basement. I had to remove them because every time you walked by, the light would turn on do to it āseeingā the reflections in the mirror, or even just the sink hardware (as one bathroom doesnāt have a mirror). mmWave would solve this problem, I think.
Oh I really want these for ZWave. I just got in to home automation stuff a year ago and have no lights but I have a bunch of ZWave locks. Now I wish I had gone with ZigBee so I could get my hands on light switches easier.
I have around 10+ red switches and 40+ red dimmers all from Inovelli. I been looking around for switch with motion detector but I have not come across anything that would make me pull the trigger.
I need at least 5 or 6 now for the bathrooms, walk in closet and laundry room.
These I will get immediately and if I think I can use these to alert me while away I will get 10 more or so.
Will these be sufficient to run bathroom fans?
Or better use these in place of light dimmer and trigger red switch (fan) when motion is sensed?
My most immediate SMART needs are
- Dimmers - no problem here (Inovelli Red and soon Blue)
- Switches - no problem here (Inovelli Red)
- Switch/Dimmer with motion (humidity sensor will be nice too but will take motion over humidity any day) (exited to see this coming from inovelli)
- LED Strip Controller (Inovelli strip wasnāt exactly what I was looking for but was best I could find. I was ready to get
2 but this was around time when it was discontinue and some components were unavailable. Dināt get it and still donāt have anything. I think I will go with ESP32 and WLED and RGBW strip.)
I may also use some Blue dimmers as repeaters, I want to get Philips outdoor motion sensors but afraid these are to far to reach my HE. Blue dimmers will help assuming these can work as repeaters. I have nothing but z-wave now.
Check out the Digi Uno (or Quad). Pre-assembled boardv with everything included wled pre-installed.
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I just installed some Nanoleaf strip under my bed frameā¦.so far I do not like it. Iām gonna try to live with it for a bit and then see if I want to tackle the quinLED route. I have a board in the basement waiting to be usedā¦
Yep. These are running esp32s but with a bunch of added features such as a level shifter, voltage protection and the like. Well worth the extra bucks over the chip alone.
I just want to say that while Iād totally buy a couple of switches with PIR motion sensing, if I had an option for smart light switches that included mmwave motion detection Iād literally tear out most of my existing switches and replace them. Iāve been talking about building my own mmwave sensors because my pir sensors have been causing me issues when I sit too still. Having them embedded in the light switch would be incredible.
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This project sounds amazing!
One additional software requirement is the ability to discern from the Hub end a physical button press, motion detection, and load state (on,off,dim) all independently, without changing the load state.
This allows for building reasonable human interactions, like āthe garage lights just turned on from motion, but I donāt want them to turn off after 5 mins, so I just manually tap the on side of the paddle once.ā This overrides the timer and keeps them on.
Or, āI need the lights to stay off while we sing happy birthday, so I manually tap the off side of the paddleā. The controller turns off the lights and ignores all further motion.
People that walk into the house shouldnāt need to be briefed on how to change the mode of the switch using the scene button or something else. A reasonable human might guess that trying to tap the on or off side of the paddle might make the lights stay in that state, like a normal switch.
This is a constant battle with the GE motion dimmers. In all fairness, this issue might be caused by limited SmartThings device handlers.
Another issue with the GE motion dimmers is that direct sunlight (even through a window) triggers the motion. Luckily the modules contain a light sensor, so the switch itself will ignore motion when the light is past a threshold, but it still makes some of the motion sensors unusable for security.
So, the takeaway is the light sensor is critical and its reading should also be accessible from the Hub/controller.
It was not a miscommunicationā¦ it was their standard operating procedure, I have 3 or 4 Jasco switches left over (that I will replace when the Red Switches and Dimmers are in stockā¦ or maybe Blue ones), and have had them for years, what he went through recently with regards to their firmware issues, I went through them with 5 or 6 years ago when I moved into my new house.
The only reason they changed, is because LTT has massive exposure, and that is what it takes sometimes to get a company to move forward.
Might be out of scope here.
But high current pull and humidity sensor in addition to motion (I have seen plenty of all in one motion/humidity sensor switched, but they have been junk).
Great for bathrooms with exhaust fans in addition to lights. The one my that BG&E installed as part of a home energy improvement program absolutely sucks. Would operate similarly to the current Fan Light switch, 2 separate switches for two separate devices, one device would be the fan.
It was a miscommunication in that there actually was no firmware update and so a firmware update wasnāt going to solve the issue anyway since the latest version was obviously buggy. Iām not saying that they arenāt bad at customer service. But thatās is off topic for this discussion
Leviton just released a motion dimmerā¦ but itās WIFIā¦ ugh.
Wanted to give a quick update here ā the engineers got back to me regarding design and how they would tackle this project and I have to say Iām pretty pleased if they can pull it off.
Here is their notes and suggestion below:
Engineer Comment: In the above solution, the length and width of the mmWave part is 21mm x 7mm. After communicating with the mmWave chip manufacturer, this antenna design can only detect the distance of about 3-5 meters due to the relatively small size; and the Lux Sensor will also occupy part of the structural space.
In other words, if we put the mmWave and lux sensor at the bottom like that, the distance is heavily restricted, so they proposed the following:
- The length of the configuration button needs to be reduced. The reduced part of the configuration button is used to install the Lux Sensor and sense the external ambient light through the light guide column.
- Place the mmWave antenna in the middle of the button, and move the Zigbee antenna to the top of the button.
Engineer Comment: The size of the mmWave antenna is 36mm x 14mm, which can reach a sensing distance of 10 meters. The size of the Zigbee antenna is 21mm x 7mm, which is smaller than the original size, which will slightly reduce the communication distance (slight effect)
ā
In other words, weād be able to keep the same paddle length and they suggest we modify the config button to be smaller.
Since mmWave can go through plastic, we can utilize the full length of the paddle and use the larger mmWave antenna.
ā
The questions we had back were:
- Can we move the lux to the bottom of the switch so that we can keep the config button uniform with our other switches?
- Will the LED bar light interfere with the Lux sensor?
Other things to look out for would be:
- They mentioned if the Zigbee antenna is smaller, it would impact the range ā how bad would this truly impact it?
- Calibrating mmWave sensitivity ā no clue how to do this yet
From a cost standpoint, thus far it isnāt as bad as I initially budgeted for, so I think this will be in the $60-65 range, even if they raise the costs a bit as we go through the project.
Overall, Iām pretty pumped!
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Iām pretty pumped too!
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The problem with humidity sensors in bathrooms, is that a light switch is usually not the optimal placement for the humidity sensor to be located and you will run into frustration of setting sensitivity high means it will kick on all the time or low and it never kicks onā¦ there is no good sweet spot with bad placement.
You are better off with a remote sensor on the ceiling located near the shower/bath.
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Personally, I would prefer shrinking the config button as the engineer suggested over moving to a different location and potentially changing the look of the paddle and/or LED bar.
