I’m using a variety of PIR motion sensors and mmWave presence sensors; most work fairly well, with a few exceptions. At this point, I have all the lights in my house automated, but with one exception: the master bedroom. I’d like to automate my bedroom lights so that they turn on when someone enters the bedroom unless someone else is already in bed sleeping. So far, none of the sensors I’ve used are precise or reliable enough to do this. I’ve thought about using the status of our phones (charging/not charging), but my girlfriend doesn’t always plug in her phone when she’s asleep. Scheduling won’t work, since we both sleep at random times when we’re off work, sometimes during the day. Maybe a pressure sensor under the mattress?

Aquara makes a device that’s advertised as being able to detect multiple people as well as sleeping people. This would be perfect if it worked, but Aquara devices seem to be the ones that always cause me the most problems.

Any suggestions?

  • @[email protected]English
    2•1 year ago

    Fwiw I picked up one of those aqara sensors and had trouble with it. It really doesn’t like the ceiling fan. Plus I think my bedroom is too small. There’s probably a sweet spot in room size. The light level meter worked as expected tho.

    I ended up using a pressure pad wired to an aqara leak sensor and it works well. The trick is finding a big enough pad.

    Edit: you could also use the states of multiple devices? We almost always use the aforementioned ceiling fan so you could make an automation like "if ceiling fan ON and lights OFF, disable (light on automation)