One simple automation. One epic creative battle. 

The Hook Up

Paul Hibbert

lol it’s true that this automation become so much easier when you use the Aqara FP2. The the device requires an outlet/constant power which isn’t available in closets or sparse in bathrooms.

Thank you! I agree that Alexander's solution is very accessible for everyone. For anyone not familiar with node-red i would suggest it. The only thing I wish could change is that fact you have to make 2 helpers for every room you want to use this automation for (but this may be more of a flaw of home assistant rather than the blueprint).

Glad you like it and thanks for the great automation!

Hey I’m really stoked you enjoy my content. I’m just doing what I find interesting and taking viewers along for the ride 😁 I have quite a few more exciting videos in progress so check back often 👌🏾

I’m glad you enjoyed the content! I hope this helps!

Good luck! HA has a slightly higher learning curve that HomeKit and other solutions but its extremely flexible and fun 😁

mmwave will offer superior results. It is essentially the right tool for the job. This technique is for those who want to maximize the PIR sensors they own or would like to automate areas where mmwave sensors can't go.

which one do you recommend?

Simplicity is relative! I definitely agree with you on that. I would love to get my tinkering skills up to build custom sensors like that. I know I could, I just don’t have the time at the moment 😪 But i totally get where you’re coming from for simplicity. I didn’t explicitly mention it in the video but the way we would rate these depends on which automation system you’re familiar with (NR vs HA). To be a bit more objective I treated it like I would at work during our Architect Office Hours. The biggest thing holding the HA Blueprint back was that at scale I found it cumbersome to maintain. Image you have 5 rooms you want to implement this in. For every room you need to create two helpers ( date and the Boolean) and 2 automations (one from the blueprint and one to actually change the lights based on the toggle. That mean you would need 10 helpers and 10 automations compared to NodeRed which would only need 5 nodes (1 for each room). One could possibly reduce the HA automations down to 6 with clever scripting but you would always need the 10 helpers and at that point the simplicity train is long gone.😆 I would recommend this script if you’re in a small apartment or a 3/2 starter home.

Yup! Astute observation. mmWave is the best tool for controlling lights based on occupancy. it’s not always possible though as it typically requires constant power (like an outlet). This automation helps you squeeze better utility and user experience from cheaper standard sensors like PIR and contact sensors which can easily go in areas like bathrooms and closets

That is basically the concept of wasp in a box.

Your confusion is reasonable. When coming up with automations, lots of people kind of start from scratch with how to implement it with the sensors they have. You backed into a similar implementation with your two sensors, but you probably had to think about it a bunch and maybe had some trial and error to get there. Once enough people do the same thing, it's useful for someone to give that strategy a name and have people use the best practice. That's what you are seeing here.

Yup. there's nothing wrong with your implementation and just as @andersonimes mentioned, it's just a name for a general pattern of behavior. For my use-case, I have a 3-year old that will leave lights on with doors open or closed so having the lights turn off even when doors are closed was necessary for me. In the majority of cases, most people won't close the door to an empty bathroom with the lights on so what i have could be considered over-engineering.

​@@technithusiast That makes perfect sense, definitely have to think about a solution for the lights to turn off again even if the door was closed outside the room.

Very interesting. Is there a way to point the motion sensor more towards the center of the room or closer to the door? If the heating vents trigger the motion sensor then you may require a different sensor like the mmwave. The downside is that the FP2 requires constant power so it makes it harder to use in smaller bathrooms

@@technithusiast I’m currently playing with the idea of building a sensor based on a “moded” smart light switch that can incorporate a mmWave sensor. The low voltage circuit should be able to power the mmWave sensor. The goal would be for everything to fit into a standard decora sized outlet… and it will be positioned at the ideal height for someone standing or sitting.

I haven't tried the bayesian sensor, I guess you could use it but it seems like its trending into over-engineering-territory. I would be curious to see how someone implements this and explain their experience using sensor for this use case.

Can you elaborate further?

@@technithusiast well note I am coming into this very late in the game and you've been working with automation systems a long time so apologies if am talking about or missing things obvious to you, but as a programmer I would consider a logical arguments of importance pyramid, for example. (assuming control of things like pet ownership or false positives in the sensors) 1: IF movementDetected THEN roomSystems ON for X seconds (this ensures that it will be noticed in the room at some point not matter what), 2: IF doorClosedDuration >= X seconds AND movementDetected then roomOcupied is TRUE, 3: if DoorOpen then roomOcupied is FALSE, With this logic if you enter a room, firstly the system will turn on as soon as you enter as that is primary logic and each time you move it will reset its timer that you can customize, now if you leave before the door closes or don't move in the room after it's closed then the system will turn off due to the timer running out and the second check not being true. the second check rules out false OCUPATION of a room with the dooClosedDuration check where it wont be true untill movement is detected AND the door has been closed for X time, because movement cannot occur in a closed room (assuming no false positives). there will be cases where you somehow manage to stay perfectly and permanently still in the room immediately after entering but I think if your sensors are well placed then this is unlikely, if you leave the door open then there is no way to determine permanent Occupation of a room so you must configure the movementDected system ON duration accordingly. All that said you could compress that logic a lot but I think it covers the edge cases you mentioned, correct me if I am missing something important

​@@technithusiast (Sorry if these replies double up but RU-vid lost my reply I think) I am coming into this late and you have been working with automation a long time it seems so forgive me if I miss or talk about things obvious to you but as a programmer I would break the problem down into a logical hierarchy of importance to solve first, such as what MUST be true, like if there is movement then someone is in the room and the system must turn on, the wasp in a box logic and its edge case always come secondary to this. Below is some rough sudocode to cover what I think is all of the cases, and hopefully its written plainly enough to get the gist : ###START # System always on when motion detected and starts a runtime timer called "systemOnTimer" IF movementDetected THEN systemOnTimer.Reset AND systemOn = True; # Starts the doorClosedTimer ONLY if the timer isn't already running (so only once when the door is first closed) IF doorClosed AND doorClosedTimer.Running == False THEN doorClosedTimer.Start; IF doorClosed == False THEN doorClosedTimer.Stop; # Stops the timer when the door opens # This sets the room to occupied if there is movement after the doorClosedTimer exceeds the buffer allowed IF doorClosed AND doorClosedTimer.Time >= doorClosedBuffer AND movementDetected THEN roomOcupied = True; # The room cannot handle full occupation with the door open as there are too many problems IF doorClosed == False THEN roomOccupied = False; # Turns off system ONLY if the room is unoccupied AND the systemOnTimer exceeds the buffer time allowed IF systemOnTimer.Time >= systemOnBufferTime AND roomOccupied == False THEN systemOn = False; ###END The edge case of someone quickly entering and exiting is covered by the door closed buffer where movement must be detected after some determined buffer duration of the door being closed to assure the room is occupied. With this logic the light will always turn on when detection is triggered and if you sitting in a closed room then after detection with the door closed it will leave the light on untill you open the door and no detection is present for X duration. the "systemOnBufferTime" and "doorClosedBuffer" would need to be tweaked to match your real world conditions but if you sensors are good and placed well, then I cant think of many reasonable situations where this would fail. basically the only fail point I can think of is if you stand completely and permanently still in a room with the door open, but that goes against the wasp in a box thing anyway and you can just adjust the "systemOnBufferTime" to a value that matches your needs and likely sensor positives.

​ @technithusiast (Sorry if these replies double up but RU-vid lost my reply I think) I am coming into this late and you have been working with automation a long time it seems so forgive me if I miss or talk about things obvious to you but as a programmer I would break the problem down into a logical hierarchy of importance to solve first, such as what MUST be true, like if there is movement then someone is in the room and the system must turn on, the wasp in a box logic and its edge case always come secondary to this. Below is some rough sudocode to cover what I think is all of the cases, and hopefully its written plainly enough to get the gist : ###START # System always on when motion detected and starts a runtime timer called "systemOnTimer" IF movementDetected THEN systemOnTimer.Reset AND systemOn = True; # Starts the doorClosedTimer ONLY if the timer isn't already running (so only once when the door is first closed) IF doorClosed AND doorClosedTimer.Running == False THEN doorClosedTimer.Start; IF doorClosed == False THEN doorClosedTimer.Stop; # Stops the timer when the door opens # This sets the room to occupied if there is movement after the doorClosedTimer exceeds the buffer allowed IF doorClosed AND doorClosedTimer.Time >= doorClosedBuffer AND movementDetected THEN roomOcupied = True; # The room cannot handle full occupation with the door open as there are too many problems IF doorClosed == False THEN roomOccupied = False; # Turns off system ONLY if the room is unoccupied AND the systemOnTimer exceeds the buffer time allowed IF systemOnTimer.Time >= systemOnBufferTime AND roomOccupied == False THEN systemOn = False; ###END The edge case of someone quickly entering and exiting is covered by the door closed buffer where movement must be detected after some determined buffer duration of the door being closed to assure the room is occupied. With this logic the light will always turn on when detection is triggered and if you sitting in a closed room then after detection with the door closed it will leave the light on untill you open the door and no detection is present for X duration. the "systemOnBufferTime" and "doorClosedBuffer" would need to be tweaked to match your real world conditions but if you sensors are good and placed well, then I cant think of many reasonable situations where this would fail. basically the only fail point I can think of is if you stand completely and permanently still in a room with the door open, but that goes against the wasp in a box thing anyway and you can just adjust the "systemOnBufferTime" to a value that matches your needs and likely sensor positives.

Nope never considered looking in HACS 🤔. I'll take a look.

@@technithusiast I really like it since it just creates a binary sensor for the "Wasp". The repository hasn't been updated in 3 years but to pull a "Hibbert"... "it just works!"

lolol 😂

What is it called?

@@fredamn76 wasp sensor (because what else)

Thanks for the question and I’m happy to clear it up! Aqara’s app allow you to create automation but it only care about its own product. So even though I can very easily create the WIAB automation in Aqara’s app it’s not helpful if I have sensors from other brands.

Nope. Node Red errors are a bit cryptic. You will have to do some manual debugging to narrow it down. ConfigError sounds like you may have a problem with your HA integration with NR.

Noice 😎😎 Glad this helps out! 😁

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