Apple Home Automation: Controlling Lights with Multiple Motion Sensors

After successfully controlling the light with a single motion sensor in the previous automation, let’s explore managing light through multiple motion sensors in this automation. This is particularly useful in intricate spaces or outdoor areas and can enhance presence detection reliability even in simple rooms.

Turn on Lights

To begin, let’s create an automation to turn on the light. The trigger is similar to the one used in the automation with a single motion sensor, but this time, we’ll utilize multiple triggers.

Tap on the “+” icon in the top right corner to add a new automation.

Events

• Events
  Motion detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

We use “Motion Sensor” as the trigger and then select the desired motion sensor. It doesn’t matter which motion sensor you choose first. We then confirm the “Movement Detected” option with “Yes”.

Instead of proceeding to conditions, we add more triggers by tapping “Add Start Event,” selecting “Motion Sensor” again, and choosing the next motion sensor with “Motion Detected” set to “Yes.” Repeat this step for each motion sensor involved in this automation.

Name the automation “Office Turn Lights On” and select a lamp as the icon.

Conditions

• Events
  Motion detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

The automation contains no conditions.

Actions

• Events
  Motion detected
• Conditions
  –
• Actions
  Turn on Lights

For actions, tap on “THEN Run These Scenes,” choose an existing scene that turns on the desired light, or create a new one using the “+” icon and a suitable name like “Turn Lights On – Office.”

As actions, we set up the lamps to be controlled by the motion detectors. You can add all the desired characteristics that should be set to a specific value. This can include characteristics such as brightness, color tone, or color temperature. In any case, it is important to enable the “Power State” and add it to the scene.

Once you have saved the scene and selected it from the list, all that remains is to activate and save the automation.

Regardless of which motion sensor triggers, the light will always turn on.

Turn off Lights

A bit more complex is the next automation, which turns off the light, but only if no motion sensor detects movement anymore.

To do this, we again create a new automation in Controller for HomeKit.

Events

Choose “Motion Sensor” as the trigger, select the first motion sensor, and set “Motion Detected” to “No.”

Add an extra trigger for each motion sensor that is intended to control the light.

Additionally, we assign a fitting name and select an icon.

Conditions

The automation currently activates whenever any motion sensor switches from “Motion Detected” to “No Motion Detected”. However, we want the light to turn off only if none of the motion sensors detect movement. Therefore, we check in the conditions that none of the sensors have indeed detected any movement.

Tap on “AND the following conditions are met”, select “Accessory,” then choose the room where the motion sensors are located, and afterward, the first motion sensor.

In the detailed view of the motion detector, all properties are listed once again. However, only the “Motion Detected” or “Occupancy detected” characteristic is of interest to us. The comparison operator should be set to “equal” and the value to “no”.

Repeat this step for each motion sensor added as a trigger through the “Add condition” button.

Actions

Once the last motion sensor has also ceased to detect motion, the light should be turned off.

To do this, tap on “THEN execute these scenes” and create a new scene with the name “Turn Lights Off – Office” by using the plus sign in the upper right corner. If you already have a scene that turns off the specific light, you can simply select it from the list.

For the actions, we choose the same lights that were already selected in the “Turn on light” automation. However, this time it is sufficient to set the “Power status” to off for each lamp.

After saving the scene and selecting it from the list, you just need to activate and save the automation.

Note: The duration for which a motion sensor remains active after detecting movement can usually be set in the manufacturer’s own apps. In our case, a duration of at least 30 seconds has proven effective..

As soon as any of the motion sensors detects movement, the light is turned on. Once the last motion sensor no longer detects motion, the light is turned off again.