Motion in Room, turn on lights, keep on until no motion for period

[wstocker]

I have a Securifi Branded Motion Sensor installed in a small room that has two light switches.  I have not been able to create a rule or rules that satisfy my wife (primary) or I in how they work!  I am on R080 at the moment.

With anything I have implemented, there are two major issues:

• The lights turn off, and do not turn on again until the Motion Detector is tripped again! From me, this means that once a rule begins to process it can not be stopped, and since we can not set a timer on the IF, I don't know if this can be fixed with the current software?
• Rules are processed linearly, with no option to process on separate threads (simultaneously).  From me, this means that if the rule says THEN set A@0, B@0.  There is a noticeable delay of seconds before the second item is processed.  I also tried making two rules with the same trigger, but I had the same effect.  If I could put these devices into a scene or group, I would presume this problem would go away.

I have attached the way these rules are configured now, as inspired by a post on the blog about rules.  I have previously configured rules to turn on at Motion Detected, and off at no motion. which worked worse.  Regardless of what time I set on the motion detector itself 5 seconds or 3 minutes, it seems to trigger that no motion is detected immediately after motion is detected.  The timer dial on the device itself seems to be a re-trigger blocker,  meaning it will only report motion detected every 'x' interval.

If we walk through the area such as when we enter, or when we leave, we want the lights on for shoes, jacket, etc for ~5 minutes unless we are taking longer, it should stay on.  When someone is folding or hanging laundry in this area (typically longer than 5 or even 10 minutes) we want the light to stay on until we leave or even 5 minutes longer than when we exited.  I confirmed that in any point in the room that matters, the motion detector will trigger motion detected on its defined interval, but the lights still turn off because it appears the initial rule is not interrupted.

[Fire69]

You can't do that with the Almond+ (yet, and I'm guessing it will take some time before this get fixes, since it's a limitation in the rules...)
I had a discussion about this (and specifically the Securifi PIR) already: http://forum.securifi.com/index.php/topic,2811.0.html

[SecureComp]

We are working with the first basic implementation of the Rules feature. As such, it is not everything we would like but does provide an excellent opportunity to try some things and provide feedback for the next version.

Scenes are in the works and I expect an enhancement to Rules as well.

You can view the "guts" of the Rules system by reviewing the Rules.xml file and the crontab entry for root.

What we should do is start a thread with desired enhancements to the Rules feature.

Things like rules working past 11:59PM, complex operators OR/NOR etc., delays beyond 5 minutes, configurable motion detection periods and more.

I would have to look at the SDK Class info for the motion sensor, haven't done it yet, to see what is and is not configurable.

A custom App built with the SDK would likely address many of these issues. I'm tackling several SDK projects at the moment but do have similar Rules issues and would like to make a couple changes, increased delays for one. It would be several weeks before I look at it and I'm hoping for a firmware update before then, so I'm throwing it on the back burner for now.

[wstocker]

You can't do that with the Almond+ (yet, and I'm guessing it will take some time before this get fixes, since it's a limitation in the rules...)
I had a discussion about this (and specifically the Securifi PIR) already: http://forum.securifi.com/index.php/topic,2811.0.html

I did a search, but didn't find your thread.  Thank you for linking to it here.  Perhaps they will get some visibility and address it in some regard.  I think the easiest solution for some of these is the If X has been in state Y for Z THEN Rule Option.  They could even likely maintain most of the UI elements that they use for Delay on the Then actions now.

[wstocker]

A custom App built with the SDK would likely address many of these issues. I'm tackling several SDK projects at the moment but do have similar Rules issues and would like to make a couple changes, increased delays for one. It would be several weeks before I look at it and I'm hoping for a firmware update before then, so I'm throwing it on the back burner for now.

I don't want to get off-topic on this, last I used the SDK it had a number of significant flaws for me, I can't be the only one that thinks these type of events should be able to be covered with Rules.

[SecureComp]

I don't want to get off-topic on this, last I used the SDK it had a number of significant flaws for me, I can't be the only one that thinks these type of events should be able to be covered with Rules.

Off Topic: The SDK is lacking but is still workable for many things imho

Back On Topic: You are not at all alone in wanting more sophisticated Rule handling, not by a long stretch. We also want Scenes, more sensors, a newer version of OpenWRT and all sorts of other things. This is the first implementation of Rules, it will get better.

If Securifi published a Roadmap, we would have an idea of what is being worked and when. Then the user community collective voice might be able to influence priorities. Communication from the Securifi side could be improved, the Backer and Development User Community is going silent as more time passes. This is not a good thing. Here is hoping that Almond+/Almond 2015 sales boost resource levels enough to address some of these issues.