Lighting Controller motion activated scene not turning off after brief use of 'Custom' mood

[Rob_in]

Hi all,

Quick question: How do people get around the fact that the Lighting Controller (v2) does not turn off motion activated scenes if one manually mixes in a mood then mixes it out?

Scenario: We have motion activated lighting outside to welcome guests (scene 'Welcome'), but sometimes outside presence is detected when we aren't expecting people and these lights come on. When this happens I sometimes manually turn on a floodlight to see if there are any people/animals in the garden that have tripped the motion. Seeing nothing, I turn the floodlight off again.

Turning the floodlight on/off is accomplished by a switch next to a window that mixes a 'Flood' mood in or out.

Now, the issue is that once one mixes an additional mood in ('Flood' in this case), the Lighting Controller thinks the mood is 'Custom'. Fair enough, but even after the mood is mixed out again it stays as 'Custom' which I consider a bug. Because of this the motion activated scene is never turned off (well, not until the 'Met' timeout occurs) which I don't like.

Firstly, I consider it a bug that the LC doesn't change the mood from 'Custom' back to 'Welcome' (or any other scene for that matter) when the LC outputs now match that scene. Has anyone here discussed that with Loxone support?

Secondly, I'm sure there are numerous ways to work around this, but none that are really ideal spring to mind. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best way to have motion activated lighting turn off after the scenario I describe above?

Cheers,

Robin 

[Ewan Tait]

Robin,

Agree that turning on individual lighting circuits should be recognised as moods by the Lighting Controller if there is a matching mood.

With regards your scenario, what would happen if Presence timed out whilst the floodlight is turned on? Would you expect all the lights turn off, just the lights that were turned on when Presence was detected to turn off, or all the lights stay on until you turn the floodlight off and then they all turn off?

As you say, there are various ways that you can work out a solution, and depending on how you use your lights will make it more or less complicated.

Having the switch directly control the lighting circuit rather than through the Lighting Controller is probably easiest, but means that if the rest of the lights go off when Presence times out, the floodlight will stay on.

Alternatively you could use the switch to turn on the floodlight but turn off all the lights; how you do that depends on how the switch is wired. I've got a "normal" light switch which is wired into a digital input, so when turned, the light goes on, and when turned off, the light goes off. This just uses Edge Detection to send pulses (in my case to a Stairwell Light Switch for the downstairs toilet, as my wife always forgets to turn the light off and I've put it on a timer).

More complicated would be to use the Presence function block with an Edge Detection on it to turn the light off via the Off input on the Lighting Controller when Presence times out, but you would need to configure it so that it only does that if the light was turned on by Presence, and then only when the floodlight isn't on.

Cheers,

Ewan

[Rob_in]

On Saturday, 8 October 2022 at 13:09:10 UTC+2 Ewan Tait wrote:

With regards your scenario, what would happen if Presence timed out whilst the floodlight is turned on? Would you expect all the lights turn off, just the lights that were turned on when Presence was detected to turn off, or all the lights stay on until you turn the floodlight off and then they all turn off?

Good point. I guess I want the end of presence period to always turn off the lights that were turned on when that period started... unless... I have mixed in another mood and that mood is still on, in which case I want things to stay on until manually turned off, then I want even the presence mood to be mixed out at the same time I mix out the flood mood.

Eg 1: Lights come on, I mix in the floodlight mood. If I don't turn that off manually I want everything to stay as is when the presence period expires, and when I eventually turn off the floodlight manually I want everything else to go off.

Eg 2: Lights come on, I mix in the floodlight mood, but then mix it out before the presence period expires. I want the original mood to turn off on it's own when the presence expires.

Sorry if I'm being vague but hope it's clear.

Robin

[Rob_in]

On Saturday, 8 October 2022 at 07:56:01 UTC+2 Rob_in wrote:

Quick question: How do people get around the fact that the Lighting Controller (v2) does not turn off motion activated scenes if one manually mixes in a mood then mixes it out?

Just as an FYI for anyone stumbling across this in the future it seems there is no ideal solution to this.

What I decided to do in the end was use the Met parameter (light timeout period even when activated manually) but set it using logic from a 2-way multiplexer. Doing this one can set the parameter to a short or longer period and also completely disable it. Yes - don't you love how a 2 way multiplexer actually has 3 different possible output values* ;)

Robin

*So long as one of the values you want is zero.

[Rob_in]

On Thursday, 13 October 2022 at 08:32:42 UTC+2 Rob_in wrote:

What I decided to do in the end was use the Met parameter (light timeout period even when activated manually) but set it using logic from a 2-way multiplexer. Doing this one can set the parameter to a short or longer period and also completely disable it.

 ... which doesn't work. Argh!!! Come on Loxone!

If one sets the Met parameter through logic and the block input it doesn't seem to work. Doh!

Ticket raised with Loxone :(

Robin