Reliable Bathroom Lighting Automation

[@beyondinsanitybr]

Why not just use a MMWave presence sensor? This way it turns on the light when there is presence and turns it off when there isn't. Simple as that.

[@shubinternet]

So, the problem here is that mmWave takes a while to recognize that someone is there. You want a passive IR sensor for fast response times. Ideally, you need passive IR plus an mmWave sensor combined. Turn on the light when either of them activates, and the turn off the light when both of them deactivates. Then you also need to handle the fan as well as the light.

[@MrBriansaunders]

​@shubinternet I use aqara fp2 mmwave and theyre fast enough for light automations for me.

[@bradjackson9660]

@@shubinternetWut? You're doing it wrong. My super cheap mmWave sensors hooked up to Particle Photon 2 microprocessors can detect someone approaching *through the bathroom wall* and the lights will come on before I even open the door. My home controller restarts a timer every time the sensor triggers, so the lights go out after 5 minutes of no motion.

[@ntsp00]

@@shubinternet No, mmWave is just as fast as PIR. You've either never used mmWave and are just spreading false info or there's something wrong with your setup.

[@AhrenBaderJarvis]

I'd suggest putting the two motion sensors into a binary sensor group. The way showed in the video will trigger motion_gone when either of the devices hasn't detected motion for 10m, however adding them to group would allow you to have a single entity to both detect motion when either of them do and clear only when BOTH have been clear for 10m.

[@SlackerLabs]

That's a good pattern.

[@MrSzoda]

If you have these two devices, the solution is Wasp in a Box. When you close the door and movement was even once detected, that means someone is in that room, at least until the door is opened again. This way the light wont turn off when you are sitting on the toilet with closed door even if the motion sensor shows unoccupied. Several blueprints exist for this.

[@SlackerLabs]

Yep.

[@dumpsterdiner]

My wife is in the shower and before heading to the grocery store I open the door and yell over the shower "Need anything from the store? I'm about to head out." A firm "no" response and I'm off to the store. Upon returning home I am summarily sh07 and kilt upon crossing the threshold, two precise bellits, one to the chest, one to the back of the head for insurance. Who mordor'd me? If you answered Jeff from SlackerLabs, you are correct 🤣 Wasp in a box is a classic home automation problem. I know I'm not the only weird one to have a wife who leaves the door open. I'm more of a 'lock the door, even when I'm home alone' type, but I have hard evidence that aliens do indeed live among us, which makes including contact sensors in these automations... tricky Nonetheless, great video as always.

[@SlackerLabs]

Yea. Bathroom lighting automations are super tricky given all the variables. Haha. I've got a kid that likes to manually turn on the light and then leave the door open in one bathroom and that light will stay on forever. Need to add some more triggers for that one.

[@BrianRoy86]

@@dumpsterdiner another trigger I use is humidity. If it’s humid in there, the bathroom fan is on. If the fan is on I consider the bathroom occupied. Once the humidity goes down, the fan goes off and if there’s no motion the lights go out. Doesn’t matter if the doors open or closed.

[@MrBriansaunders]

I recommend adding another condition to your 2nd option that makes sure motion hasn't been detected for whatever interval before turning the light off. Your current automation will turn the lights off 3 minutes after the door is opened regardless of whether motion is detected. Additionally the lights would not come back on from a motion detected trigger unless the entity state actually changed from not detected to detected. So if you're already in the bathroom 3 minutes after you opened the door and motion was detected the entire time, the lights will shut off and not turn back on from motion as you might expect.

[@SlackerLabs]

@MrBriansaunders i would probably just set the mode to restart. That way as long as motion was detected within that 3 mins the for counter would start over. This bathroom isn't one that gets a lot of activity that isn't real quick or the door isn't closed. But so far the lights haven't gone out on anyone.

[@bartbjorri9502]

Great for explaining triggers. Look like a lot more easy for multiple stage automations.

[@diedrichg]

Mine: Option 1: Turn ON lights when door opens, PIR or mmwave is detected - Start exhaust fan ON timer, cancel exhaust fan OFF timer. Option 2: Fan ON timer finishes & mmwave is Home & door is closed - turn on exhaust fan. Option 3: When mmwave is Away and PIR is Clear - turn off lights, cancel fan ON timer, start fan OFF timer. Option 4: When fan OFF timer finishes - turn off exhaust fan. Lights are on Diva Dimmer, fan is on Claro Switch. Fan ON timer waits 2:45 until fan goes on. Fan remains on when occupancy is clear and the Fan OFF timer turns off the fan after 7 minutes (simple calculation of volume of the room and the cubic feet per minute of the fan).

[@SlackerLabs]

In my previous house that had an exhaust fan i used a humidity sensor for the fan. Once the level hit a certain point the fan was on until the humidity level dropped.

[@DBTechYT]

Great explanation on the automation setup! Had no idea that was a thing/possible! Thanks! :)

[@holohane]

Hi Jeff, great video as always. Keep up the good work. Eddie

[@denesk2794]

IMHO if it's a toilet, the best/easiest and most reliable method is a sonar or IR distance sensor. Maybe a light gate. You are going to be either standing or sitting..... If it's a shower/bath, probably a presence sensor like the Aqara. Right now I only have a motion in the 2 bathrooms and so sometimes you end up waving from the shover :) when the timer runs out.

[@SlackerLabs]

I like this solution as well! I think the Aqara FP2 is the only one rated for a "wet" environment as well. Of course, I might be wrong there. I haven't been keeping up with Presence sensors lately. But for anyone who wants to go this route, and that presence sensor is going to be where it might get splashed consider that.

[@denesk2794]

@@SlackerLabs Yep the FP2 is tolerant to humidity. I have one on my porch and I live on the tropics. Right now it's 95% humidity out there :) and it goes higher.

[@EsotericArctos]

I had issues with my bathroom lights turning off during showering as the passive IR sensor wouldn't work through the glass properly. I ended up putting a second motion sensor to detect the shower area and grouped the two sensors together in a group. Problem solved. I use a couple of options ,depending on time of day, to set the lights to different brightness depending on the time of day so I don't get blinded when needing to pee at night lol. So far mine seems to work well, and turns off 5 mins after no motion detected. I considered a mm wave sensor, but found these a little awkward given the need power cords, and the motion sensors are battery, I didn't complicate things with a door sensor. Motion sensors alone seem fine. Trailing Edge dimming works best with LED ( this is sometimes called reverse phase) or universal dimming if you have that option. Some drivers work with Leading Edge dimming, but most prefer trailing edge. Also note that some dimmable LED's will only work down to a certain brightness, so you may need to set your minimum brightness level to a bit brighter than you would with incandescent lights

[@kwanizac]

I think a contact sensor and presence sensor are optimal for this. They work perfectly for me

[@redfabio]

I have follwed step by step. What if you shut the door behind you as soon as you leave the bathroom? Will the light stay on forever?

[@SlackerLabs]

In this case yep. Definitely needs more context for your special use cases

[@diedrichg]

Timers are my solution, they re-detect motion and start the timer again until there is no motion and then the lights/fan go off. See my long comment - it includes my automation.

[@TheConstantinosK]

i use a door contact to open the light fast and a mmwave sensor to turn off the light when no presence....works very well .I used to use 2 pir sensors ,one for shower one for the rest,a door contact and a contact on the toilet seat.....too complicated.

[@Eviltek2099]

@SlackerLabs My question is out of context for this video, but I've been searching for a solution for several years and I'm unable to find one. Could you recommend a stylish nice looking, more than just a white box on the wall? Home thermostat to control a forced air air conditioner. I would prefer it to be z wave, but would accept wifi options. I do not want cloud options. I want to. go completely off grid. I currently use home assistant for my hub. I love the look of the nest thermostat, but those pretty much go offline when the Internet goes out. Which is why I want to resist cloud options.

[@SlackerLabs]

I think the stylish is going to be the limiter. Most of the zwave ones I have seen don't look stylish. I have a honey well pro series I like. It's zwave. But not what I would call stylish. Basically a square led screen with a white bezel.

[@Eviltek2099]

@@SlackerLabs Ya, seems to be a need for someone to fill this market. I might just have to build my own. More than I wanted to get into though.

[@m.j.r.technologyreveiws1075]

Great Video but the flip side is that the setup is overly complex and hard to pass on to new owners. By far, the most simple solution is a Lutron Motion Switch with my personal favorite: WiZ programmable settings bulbs. Auto On, Auto Off, flick the switch to change bulb settings, built in natural light sensor, no batteries, wife approved, works immediately after a power outage.

[@Cryst_]

For motion_gone trigger (after 10min) you should use AND statement instead of OR.

[@SlackerLabs]

In this case I am not sure that will work. I want the automation to fire when anytime one or the other senses no motion after 10 mins. I have a condition down in the choose action that will limit the lights turning off to when the door is open and the motion has stopped. But if it becomes an issue I will put those two in a group or a template so they both have to be clear to trigger. Triggers themselves are always or. Would need a condition or something like a template to make it use the and.

[@ovidiui]

Why not a mmwave sensor?

[@SlackerLabs]

It would work as long as you got the power in the right spots, and your sensor didn't mind damp environments.

[@BrianRoy86]

$129 for a dimmer switch? No thanks, I'll get 4 or 5 Zooz switches for the same price.

[@SlackerLabs]

Yea. Definitely overkill for this use case of one light. in this bathroom a zooz switch would have probably worked just as well.

[@daveforrester61]

Sadly there's no "one method fits all" for bathroom lighting automations. In our own use case, we have 2 bathrooms where the door is mostly closed and 2 where the door is mostly open. Plus we have a 5 year who is always leaving bathroom doors open. So I use motion sensors and timers. Timer starts when the light comes on and, if when the timer runs down there is no motion detected, the light turns off. Must say I don't like seeing socket-outlets in bathrooms, in fact they're not allowed here, but you're 110V and we're 230V over this side of the pond. The real trick is trying to find something to create an occupancy binary_sensor from.

[@diedrichg]

The best solution I've found is mmwave for sustained occupancy and timers to ensure proper on/off of lights and fan

[@SlackerLabs]

Yep, I agree. Smart Home is never a one solution to rule them all.

[@OrlandoPaco]

Your volume is low for the youtube "norm".

[@youtubxkip]

Oh my... this is SOOO questionable. After fiddling with automations for a half a year, it hurts even watching this. There are multitude of triggers and with default automation mode any of this overrides and stops the others. The complexity grows to uncontrollable state and makes a race conditions... Like what if motion did not detected yet by the time door is closed? Triggering light on by closing the door will trigger "button search" process for every guest. Etc, etc... I haven't seen flawless solution so far, but this one looks way off...

[@SlackerLabs]

What? Default mode is single. So multiple triggers doesn't stop it. While automation is running no new trigger would fire the automation. But in this case that doesn't matter. And no. Door closes the light turns on. The light switch is not near the door. So no button searches happen. Because the light is on. And by the time the people reach the switch. The light is on. This has been 100% flawless for this bathroom. But i covered that in the video as I'm sure you know.

[@lesegomodutwane5915]

dude, u good? u made me, don't try to make a video even if u not okay