10 Great Uses For Motion Sensors In Home Automation
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Turn On The Lights
Probably the single most commonly used application for motion sensors in the automated home. Turning on lights automatically as someone enters the room is a very simple and effective automation.
Using the smart home system to turn the lights off after the motion is no longer sensed takes care of any forgetful home users. It is important to consider the physical location of the sensor to ensure that the sensor detects someone entering at the right time, and isn’t installed somewhere that might sense people that are not entering the room. Take a look at our placement blog for more information.
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Turn Off The Lights
Otherwise known as ‘Absence detection’, using a motion sensor to turn off the lights can be a great way to avoid leaving lights on in rooms that are empty. Some users might not want the motion sensor to automatically bring on the light when they enter and would prefer to use the switch to do this.
However, some clever home automation can make sure that if the lights are turned on in a room, and no motion is sensed for a configured time period, then turn the lights off. This is a great ‘semi-automation’ option for some users.
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Activate Different Time Dependant Scenes
Lighting automation doesn’t just need to be on / off lighting. Picture the large open plan living space with downlights, lamps, some LED strip lighting in the bookcase and some low level accents.
It would be a shame for this beautiful lighting design to not show the full range of scenes possible. So the lighting ‘set back’ or ‘standby’ scene may involve the low level lights and the lamps to be on at 50% brightness after sunset.
When someone enters the room, the motion sensor detects presence and gently fades up the downlights and the LED strip lighting on the bookcase to brighten the scene.
When the room is empty and the motion sensor hasn’t sensed motion in the timeout period the downlights and the LED strip fades down to off and the room reverts to the previous ‘standby’ scene. Really wow your guests with this one!
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Heating Boost/Override
Often motion sensors are specified for lighting automation, but true home automation doesn’t just control lighting.
Why not use the motion sensor to intelligently automate heating? Use the motion sensors to make sure that heating schedules are extended in rooms where people are.
As soon as the heating is outside the schedule and the motion sensor has not detected motion for a set timeout - then allow heating to set back in that zone.
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Energy Saving Automation
It seems obvious, but using motion sensors to detect room absence can be a great way to reduce energy. As we have already covered, using motion sensors to turn off lights in vacant rooms is a good way to save energy but why stop there?
Motion sensors can be used to shut off air conditioning in empty offices and lower blinds in empty rooms on hot days to avoid solar gain.
Keep your mind open to the options motion based automation can allow.
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Turn Off AV
It can be easily done, the morning after a film night you come down stairs to realise the AVR has been left on all night, or worse still the TV has been on with a blank screen for hours on end (still possibly more entertaining than the cricket).
Use the motion sensors to send Discrete commands to the AV devices to switch them off when the room has been empty for a suitable amount of time.
Just make sure you don’t set timeouts that mean the system is turned off midway through the film!
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Activate music
Multiroom audio is a popular feature of the modern smart home. Using the motion sensor to bring on music can offer some very nice touches to the home automation system.
A great example is in WCs and bathrooms, Why not have some music automatically come on when someone enters the WC? Why not have the motion sensor trigger your favourite radio station when you enter the bathroom in the morning?
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Front Door Alert / Notification
A well positioned outdoor motion sensor (such as our Motion Sensor 360 - IP67 - Volt Free (Dry Contact)) can ping phones, turn on lights and even open gates should any unwanted visitors approach the house.
Just the fact a light inside the home has come on and the front gate has opened would be enough to startle most would-be intruders.
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Silence Alarm - Get out of bed
This is a personal favourite of ours - a carefully positioned motion sensor in the dressing area can be used to silence the morning wake up alarm.
Yes, this may seem a little extreme but it means that the only way to silence the morning wake up alarm is to get out of bed and go into the dressing room and is that not the reason we have wake up alarms?
This is one you may hate to love.
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Fountain / Water Feature Automation
A well positioned motion sensor at the gate or at the vehicle entrance detects an arrival, this in turn triggers the fountain in the driveway to start its pump.
Sure, an automated fountain on the driveway is not a feature most houses have but if it’s an option why not intelligently automate the waterworks to really provide the ‘Wow’ factor to your guests as they arrive.
Our incredible customers are always finding new and exciting ways to create motion based automation in their customers homes. If you have created some other motion based automation actions make sure you let us know.
The Faradite Team