Outside PIR Help?

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  • tizwaz
    Automated Home Sr Member
    • Aug 2007
    • 58

    Outside PIR Help?

    I Don't think this has been covered completely in another thread, please point me to it if it has.

    I've just installed an external PIR on the front of the house. Mainly to switch on the outside porch light when someone walks up the path.

    But I'm struggling where to place the PIR icon and how to connect it to the porch light. I currently don’t a front garden ‘room’, if I did how would doors work with it, and would someone walking up the path tripping the PIR affect the house occupancy whilst we were out?

    Could I attach the PIR to the ‘world’? But then the world can’t have a presence attached to it can it?

    How have you done your outside lights with PIR’s? Any advice would be gratefully received.

    Thanks C
  • chris_j_hunter
    Automated Home Legend
    • Dec 2007
    • 1713

    #2
    yep, all good questions ...

    we tried in another thread :



    to no avail ...

    as did Paul awhile before :



    our external PIR / light-level / temp' / humidity sensors are all in our gazebo, with garden between it & the house - garden being without sensors ...

    and we've an AUI by the yard gate, again with the yard between it & the house having no sensors ...

    and another AUI outside the front-door, also with no PIR etc sensors to assist ...

    yep, good questions - and, have to say , a bit of a black hole in the Idratek scheme of things, ISTM ...
    Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 31 July 2012, 10:59 PM.
    Our self-build - going further with HA...

    Comment

    • Karam
      Automated Home Legend
      • Mar 2005
      • 863

      #3
      You could add a Porch room to the World and put the PIR in there. You could connect the porch room to your house via the front door connectivity, but you do also need another virtual always open door from the porch to the world, i.e has only one connection (Door opens into porch) and 'This is an external door' checked, otherwise once the porch becomes occupied there is no way for Cortex to clear occupancy in that room aside from the catchall timeouts. This way if the porch PIR is triggered it makes the porch occupied but the porch is not part of the house so the house won't become occupied. The door connectivity would allow transfer of occupancy from house to porch to world and vice versa. However I would say it is optional and only if you have a front door sensor (unlike internal doors sensors on external doors are a must). Caveat: This is just reasoned guesswork on my part. I shall ask Vivian for any further opinion/experience when he's back.

      Comment

      • chris_j_hunter
        Automated Home Legend
        • Dec 2007
        • 1713

        #4
        >unlike internal doors sensors on external doors are a must ...

        well, that's great - we're installing our internal doors at the moment, and all have / will soon have reed switches ...

        but we installed our external doors a few months back, and none have reed-switches, and it's difficult to see how we could now add them ...

        grrrh !
        Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 1 August 2012, 01:03 AM.
        Our self-build - going further with HA...

        Comment

        • Viv
          Automated Home Ninja
          • Dec 2004
          • 284

          #5
          Originally posted by chris_j_hunter View Post
          >unlike internal doors sensors on external doors are a must ...

          well, that's great - we're installing our internal doors at the moment, and all have / will soon have reed switches ...

          but we installed our external doors a few months back, and none have reed-switches, and it's difficult to see how we could now add them ...

          grrrh !
          I would say that monitoring the external doors is more important than the internal.
          The House behaviour has an option "Use external doors to evaluate unoccupied state".
          What this means is that all the rooms can become unoccupied but the house remains 'Pending unoccupied' untill it sees an external door open then close.
          So if lack of movement causes the presence in rooms to time-out the house still remains occupied.
          Using this feature means Alarm auto arming and other features are more reliable.

          Surprised Chris with all you sensors you missed your main doors. Thin enameled copper wire (twisted pair) can often be tucked into very tight places and be covered in decorators grout so as to hide.

          The Alarm is also better automated with normal front door sensed but can be got around.

          Viv

          Comment

          • Viv
            Automated Home Ninja
            • Dec 2004
            • 284

            #6
            Attached is a jpg of part of database with an external lobby.
            A property of the Lobby room in its connections menu is 'Routes into room incomplete' and is checked.

            The light is configured for lighting up time and dark to turn on.

            The PIR(s) trigger the lights timer start. So many PIR's can cause the same light or lights to turn on for a defined period.

            Viv
            Attached Files

            Comment

            • tizwaz
              Automated Home Sr Member
              • Aug 2007
              • 58

              #7
              Hi Viv, sorry Im still confused. Are you saying I should create a room and call it a lobby and that's where I'd place my external front garden PIR?

              If so, as it's a room won't the postman triggering the PIR cause Cortex to think the house is occupied again?

              C.

              Comment

              • chris_j_hunter
                Automated Home Legend
                • Dec 2007
                • 1713

                #8
                OK, we’ll retro-fit, in some way - one of the doors is the front door (timber, with solenoids operated by an AUI XRM), two are garage doors (with various modes operated via three QRIs), three are aluminium french-windows (one half or the other or both can be closed or open, and either or both can be left open for extended periods, as in fine weather), one is an aluminium top-hung window, and the last is a uPVC casement window ...

                Still not sure how to position our AUIs in Cortex - one is outside the front-door, the other is across the yard by the gate ...

                do we add a Porch to the House, with the front-door between Hall & Porch, the front-door AUI in the Porch, and an always-open door between Porch & World ... ?

                and do we make the Yard a room in the World, with the other AUI in it, with the gate (again operated by XRM relays) an external door, and ... ?

                hmm, not sure how to treat the garage doors (which are external doors of the House, and let onto the Yard) ...

                or the Gazebo, which has various sensors (PIR, temp’, humidity) & relays (for lights & pumps), and adjoins both Yard (as above) & Garden (sensor-less) ...

                Chris
                Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 1 August 2012, 05:56 PM.
                Our self-build - going further with HA...

                Comment

                • tizwaz
                  Automated Home Sr Member
                  • Aug 2007
                  • 58

                  #9
                  Right, a glass of red and a good think…. And I may have solved my problem at least.

                  I’ve created a room on the ground floor I’ve called ‘Front Garden’ in which I’ve put the outside PIR icon and the outside front porch light icon (the light I want to automate).

                  I’ve not added any doors to the room, and I’ve removed the PIR reporting any presence to it. That way it can’t be occupied.

                  In the light more connections I’ve set the outside PIR to start the light timer of the porch light, and set the light timer to 40 seconds. There’s also a light level connection from another unit so the light only comes on when it’s dark.

                  So, hopefully when the outside PIR is triggered the light should come on for 40 seconds at least or until the light timer is allowed to time out.

                  Phew….. probably an unorthodox approach…..

                  Comment

                  • Viv
                    Automated Home Ninja
                    • Dec 2004
                    • 284

                    #10
                    [QUOTE=

                    do we add a Porch to the House, with the front-door between Hall & Porch, the front-door AUI in the Porch, and an always-open door between Porch & World ... ?

                    [/QUOTE]

                    You Add the porch (Room) to the WORLD. That is, not owned by the House. The House evaluates the rooms it owns to determin its occupied state. So rooms it does not own do not influence the house occupied state.

                    The Porch or Yard or Garden can benefit from the room occupied behaviour if required without upsetting the House occupied state by not being owned by the house.

                    The normal tracking logic can track a person leaving the hall through the front door into the Porch. The Hall becomes unoccupied. The Hall Porch door closing is an external door and informs the House to re-evaluate its occupied state. The Porch has someone in it. The always open door means the Porch occupancy will eventually timeout. The Always open door only has the Porch connected to it with 'This is an external door checked in connections.

                    This setup is so you can manage outside lights in the Porch area.

                    *******************

                    I see no reason why the AUI can not be part of the World? It does not need to be in a room.

                    *******************

                    Garage doors would normally be exernal doors. Only reporting door change of state to the Garage.

                    Hope this helps

                    Viv
                    Last edited by Viv; 3 August 2012, 05:55 PM.

                    Comment

                    • chris_j_hunter
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Dec 2007
                      • 1713

                      #11
                      Viv -

                      thanks, that does help ...

                      is there a simple way to move modules & their various sub-objects & attributes from one room to another - when we've tried in the past, we've always ended-up with a muddle to sort-out, and thought it easier to delete & start again (which sometimes can take more than a while to do) ...

                      ??

                      Chris
                      Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 4 August 2012, 05:09 PM.
                      Our self-build - going further with HA...

                      Comment

                      • chris_j_hunter
                        Automated Home Legend
                        • Dec 2007
                        • 1713

                        #12
                        OTOH, having just set about trying to implement something, it seems we're more confused than ever ...

                        ie: some questions (referring to both Karam's & Viv's postings) :

                        - how do we Connect a reed switch / digital input to a door, in Cortex ?

                        - always open - is that what a door is until it has a digital input Connected (in some way) to it ?

                        - Front Door connectivity - seems to imply a special-to-purpose object, but we can find none such ...

                        - can we have a door connecting a room in the World to a room in the House ?

                        eg: a door between a Porch (a Room in the World) & a Hall (a Room in the House)

                        - and, if so, how can such a door be an external door, which has just one Connection ?
                        Our self-build - going further with HA...

                        Comment

                        • Karam
                          Automated Home Legend
                          • Mar 2005
                          • 863

                          #13
                          - Its the other way around. That is, you would connect a physical door sensor (eg. reed switch) to a digital input and then choose a door object (from the list of connectable objects) to represent that input. That kind of a door object is slightly different from the Door object which you can insert from the Add Cortex logic object list (the latter being to represent unsensorised doors which nonetheless tell Cortex about connectivity between rooms). The icons are slightly different too in that a logic door is grey whereas a sensorised door is black.

                          - You can connect a signal source into a logic door but it has to be done from the signal source connections side. So in my earlier example the virtual kitchen door took its state from the real sensorisd door. Otherwise the default state of a logic door is open - it is just there to tell Cortex about paths between rooms.

                          - External door is a check box available in any door object connections menu. If you tick it then it tells Cortex that this door is special in the sense that information from it should be used in evaluating whether someone has left or entered the house.

                          - Yes a door connecting a room in the world to a room in the house is what is described in my example. It can have connections to the porch and hall and still have its 'This is an external door' checkbox ticked. You then also need a logic door in the porch with one side only connected to the porch and the this is an external door also checked.

                          Comment

                          • chris_j_hunter
                            Automated Home Legend
                            • Dec 2007
                            • 1713

                            #14
                            ah, thanks ... so there are doors, and there are doors !

                            we’ve now got all but two of our internal doors installed (physically), and two of the reed switches, too ... but, of course, as Murphy’s Law dictates, the two twos are the same two, so the time has still not come for us to get Presence determination working in Cortex ...

                            still, we’ve now got the two reed-switches Connected to the right type of door, and PlanView is duly showing what you described !

                            Little by little, we’re getting there ... focus is currently on non-electrical things, but the electrical to-do list is growing, and in a week or two may well warrant a diversion !
                            Our self-build - going further with HA...

                            Comment

                            • marcuslee
                              Automated Home Ninja
                              • Dec 2009
                              • 279

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Viv View Post
                              You Add the porch (Room) to the WORLD. That is, not owned by the House. The House evaluates the rooms it owns to determine its occupied state. So rooms it does not own do not influence the house occupied state.

                              The Porch or Yard or Garden can benefit from the room occupied behaviour if required without upsetting the House occupied state by not being owned by the house.

                              The normal tracking logic can track a person leaving the hall through the front door into the Porch. The Hall becomes unoccupied. The Hall Porch door closing is an external door and informs the House to re-evaluate its occupied state. The Porch has someone in it. The always open door means the Porch occupancy will eventually timeout. The Always open door only has the Porch connected to it with 'This is an external door checked in connections.

                              This setup is so you can manage outside lights in the Porch area.

                              *******************

                              I see no reason why the AUI can not be part of the World? It does not need to be in a room.

                              *******************

                              Garage doors would normally be exernal doors. Only reporting door change of state to the Garage.

                              Hope this helps

                              Viv
                              If the Porch is owned by World, will the lights in the Porch still be available for control by Cortex Mobile (as I think Cortex Mobile might only provide control over House objects?

                              Comment

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