Sensor "tripped changes from..."

Plugins & Plugin Development Reactor
#1

Hi, I have the following very simple reactor sensor to send me an alert if a motion sensor is tripped whilst away:

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I’m using “changes from” so that if a sensor was tripped as I’m leaving the house (mode changes to away), the condition won’t be true. At least that’s what I’m expecting but this isn’t the case.

I’m finding that this condition is true even when the sensor tripped is already equal to 1 and house mode changes to away.

Am I misinterpreting the meaning of “changes from” in this case?

#2

EDIT:

Oh… I think I understand what is happening. If the “Sensor tripped” group is true when house mode changes to away, then of course the root group will be true!

Any ideas on the best way of handling this? What I really want is for reactor to ignore the state of the sensors if already tripped, when house mode changes to away.

#3

There are many ways to attack this. Probably the simplest is to add a “sustained for” on your house mode condition to create an “exit delay” (Hmmm… Is Vera’s built-in delay for house mode transitions not enough? Why not just increase that?). Make sure the delay is longer than the reset period of your motion sensors, or there’s a chance they will not have reset from sensing motion before the transition completes.

Another option, and you may need it nonetheless, is to introduce sequencing… you only want alerts for motion after the system goes into Away/Vacation mode. A combination of both sequencing and delay may cover all the bases.

#4

Yes, thank you. I dn’t want to use the built-in house mode delay because for most other scenarios, I want house modes to switch as fast as possible.

The “sustained for” option on house mode changes is simple enough (and I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t consider this!).

I explored this too but I don’t quite understand how the “only after … within” sequencing works.

#5

Wrap the house mode test in an AND or OR group by itself. Then, open the condition options on each sensor test, and in the “after” option dropdown, choose that wrapper group. Save.

That will make it so the sensor conditions are only met if they go true after the house mode group goes true. In combination with the right exit delay, it should take care of those unwanted notifications at exit.

#6

Thank you! Out of curiosity, what does the “within X seconds” clause do? I’ve left this set to 0.

#7

It requires that the two events happen in sequence within a limited period of time. Your condition is more about ensuring something doesn’t happen when two events occur too closely together, so it doesn’t apply to you, and zero is the correct value for that.

#8

Gotcha. Thanks.

#9