A motion sensor or motion detector is useful to your security system as it detects when someone is in your home when they should not be. A motion sensor allows detecting movement in an area with multiple technologies such as brightness sensitivity, Lux values, and daylight control and setting. The lower you set, the more light your motion sensor needs activating.
This setting is very great to save energy to save you lots of money every year and optimize while your lights activate. It can give you 24/7 monitoring because it picks up movement in light and dark environments.
You can have them mounted outside on trees and fence posts. They can be connected to your Homeseer home automation system via Hubitat home automation. The motion sensors are Zigbee and pair to the Hubitat Hub easily. However, you should have a question – Does it provide a LUX setting?
Yes, the Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor has brightness sensitivity settings, which can be controlled within either the Philips Hue app or HomeKit. The Hue motion sensors expose the lux to HomeKit. You also can use Aqara. Download the free Eve app which is pretty much a great alternative to the Home app with more functions. With the Lux from your Hue motion sensor as a condition or trigger, You can create automation called rules within the Eve app.
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What Can Hue Outdoor Sensor Do?
The Hue outdoor motion sensor turns on your Hue lights automatically when someone passed by, indoor and outdoor. By connecting your motion sensor to the Hue bridge through the Philips Hue app, you are able to select which hue lights go on.
It is designed to resist various weather conditions such as shine or rain while used in outdoor environments. The battery life is great. Some users have reported they have been running their motion sensor for over a year and the battery is still going strong. You will also get an advanced notice in the app when the battery needs to be replaced.
It works awesome and is extremely easy to set up. It also works seamlessly with HomeKit as soon as set up in the Hue app. It also has brightness and temperature sensors built-in, so you can add this feature to your HomeKit which is super great.
You have the ability to set up the behavior separately for day/night times, how long it will stay on after motion is detected, sensitivity, and make it trigger a configurable group of Hue lights.
What does Lux Setting Mean on a Motion Sensor?
A motion sensor (or motion detector) is a useful electronic device that is designed to detect and measure movement. Motion sensors are useful both outdoors and indoors since they can keep watching for any unexpected movement while you are away from your home or asleep.
Motion sensors are used with your lights or systems of lights for security and safety reasons. If someone walks by the monitored area the light will turn on automatically right away. They don’t come with one, static threshold about how much light they can detect. However, they are special devices that notice movement within a specified range you can set.
Motion sensors use one or multiple technologies to detect movement in an area, so you can set up your motion sensor to trigger properly. The sensitivity of motion sensors can be set, which allows you to calibrate how readily movement triggers it.
Higher sensitivities are great for you if you want your lights to trigger much more often. Lower sensitivities are great for you to ensure your lights trigger at the right moment. So if you don’t want your motion sensor triggering easily, you can have lower settings.
The lux control of motion sensors is very useful for you if you know how to set it up correctly. You can use it for various events.
Do you want to be familiar with their setting?
Why Your Hue Motion Sensor Should Have a Daylight Sensitivity Control
The Philips Hue Smart Motion Sensor combines energy efficiency and convenience. You can control the brightness threshold to trigger your lights with movement when you need them to.
The Hue motion sensors actually have three detectors built into them. They can sensor and report the amount of light, any motion, and even the temperature, which is the biggest advantage to prevent misfiring.
The motion detection and light sensitivity are totally adjustable with the Apple Home app or Philips Hue app. Essentially, you can install your motion sensor within the app once you have selected the installation, and then you can adjust its sensitivity to motion and light. After adjusting the unit such that it will be able to sense how much light there is. So it can then either react to a motion under these light conditions or not totally based on the settings you pick.
The Hue app allows you to configure day/night times manually and the motion sensor also can sense daylight.
You can use it to kick on either the outside lights if someone walks into your backyard or the front porch light at night if someone comes to the door. In other words, it will trigger lights when you come home at night.
On the other hand, there are various settings for the time of night, day, Daylight, and many other controls. They can be used to trigger lights anywhere in the Hue installation.
If you get familiar with smart home technology, you will be enamored with them. These interconnected devices promise to revolutionize the way you live in your homes, making things more efficient, simpler, and far more reactive to your presence.
How to Set Lux on Outdoor Motion Sensor?
If you would like your lights to come on if it is overcast outside in a particular room, you can tap into the Lux levels on the Hue motion sensor. You can set the trigger sensitivity for the Lux sensor to trigger below a certain threshold if there’s a movement within the Hue app or HomeKit Home app or iConnectHue app.
You can slide the sensitivity value down to make sure it is less sensitive or up to make sure it is more sensitive.
You might need to update the settings and take some tests to set it exactly right. If you have to upgrade your lights, you might also need to change the setting value. If your neighbors have the Christmas Vacation lighting mounted, you might also need to adjust the value.
Some users have reported some problems with the setting, there are some tips for you to deal with.
Troubleshooting the Daylight Sensitivity Settings
Smart home technology uses an array of sensors, connected devices and the machine learning, internet of things, and artificial intelligence technologies for home automation. Of course, it will also have some documented problems you need to fix.
I will list some common problems you may have with your Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensors. Some users have reported them and you also can fix them if you know how to do.
How to Make the Most Out of Your Daylight Sensitivity Control
Daylight sensitivity is a useful feature for you if you want your motion sensor to detect how much daylight there is in your room or outside, and it will not trigger the lights when there is sufficient daylight.
If you want o get your ideal threshold for registering motion via the daylight sensitivity control, you require to make the setting under the condition where your motion sensor will be operating.
Let’s give an example for sensor sensitivity. If all of the lights have turned on and you slide the sensitivity of sensor down to almost zero, so it will register your brightly lit room as the near-zero threshold. You will find out that it would most likely never register motion under a regular lighting environment because it will never be as bright as while all of the lights are on.
How should you do? You should understand a concept first about Daylight sensitivity.
Daylight sensitivity: This setting is very useful to adjust your sensor’s sensitivity to light. It works well on the assumption that if you have got sufficient light, so there is no reason to turn more on. This means that, if you got a sunlit, bright room, your motion sensor will stop detecting movement till the light levels drop below your set level.
You can set the brightness sensitivity in the actual lighting environment your sensor can work. You also should set the brightness sensitivity at night or in a similar low-light environment for your Hue outdoor motion sensor that mainly comes on floodlights in the evening.
It is also very useful to use for daytime when you set it correctly.
Apple HomeKit Lux Sensor for Automation Triggering
HomeKit isn’t a software or product, it’s a framework that links smart home products together and also adds new features to devices such as thermostats, plugs, cameras, locks, lights, and more.
HomeKit allows you to control your smart home devices using apps on your iPad, iPhone, or Mac, or simple Siri voice commands.
You also can use HomeKit for your Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor, but some issues you should figure out first.
The Philips Hue Bridge actually hides the motion sensor from HomeKit. It indicates that any type of automation that includes lux value is not going to integrate the motion sensor. Don’t worry, I have some solutions to link them together.
The Hue Motion sensor actually has three sensors in one. Not only will you get the motion sensor itself, but also a temperature sensor and a light intensity sensor. All of them will be available in HomeKit as soon as the device is set up in the Hue app.
Do you want to know how to control the brightness sensitivity of the Hue outdoor motion sensor with Homekit?
There is some basic automation you can create such as turning on lights, detecting motion by clicking the plus icon. However, I will simply focus on lux value for lights.
You can follow a few steps below:
- Go to hit “advanced”.
- Go to “Convert to Shortcut”.
Now you can make an easy “If statement” as your Shortcut with the following steps:
- Apply the motion sensor you need as the Input
- Apply “current light level” as the Name
- Pick “Is less than” as the Condition
- Pick the lux value you need
- You can delete as well as add a control Home action
- There will be brightness, light, and color you want for the Control Home action
- Using an “End If” to end the Shortcut
All of the Philips Hue lines can support Apple HomeKit, and the motion sensor is no exception. You will see a temperature reading, a light measurement, and the motion status within the Home app. This trio of motion sensors can be used for various automation rules with any other HomeKit accessories like outlets, light switches, lights, or outlets from other companies.
Note: If all of them fail, please try to reset or check the battery.
The Lux won’t work in the home app so what you’d rather just isn’t possible. Yeah, look up home assistant it can make your craziest automation dreams come true and more.
Hue Motion Sensor Daylight Sensitivity Not Working
Some users have reported their outdoor sensor has some issues. Your twilight sensor may doesn’t work, this means that it turns on the light when movement is detected even in full daylight.
With Hue Essentials, you may see that the Hue outdoor motion sensor doesn’t detect ambient light (reads only 1 lux in daylight).
All you can try is the following solutions.
Solution One
Try adjusting the light sensitivity while constantly triggering the motion detector… as light levels are only sent to the bridge when motion is detected and is then cached on the bridge! In other words, the light level currently reported by the bridge might be the light level at the time motion was last detected.
Solution Two
Just to update Philips have found the problem and it may be a software fix. They’ve been really good at keeping you updated and you will be testing a beta version for them when it’s ready. For the moment you’ll just have to sit it out. As a temporary fix, you can just set the daytime to “do nothing” and nighttime to start at 6pm when it gets dark.
How to Use the LUX reading on the indoor motion sensors to fire a routine
There is a Hue Labs formula, sunlight as a switch, which might be useful for you. You also can try the EVE app. Works fine for me!
How to use Hue Essensial app for Lux setting
Do you have trouble with the setup on your outdoor sensor like below:
- When it is daylight the light should be off, motion or no motion?
- When it gets dark it should turn on the dimmed lights. When movement it should put on full light?
You can do it with Hue Essensial app by the following solution:
Sensor setup:
- Movement: set scene to “full light”
- No movements: set scene to “dimmed light”
- Sensitivity for daylight: max
- Lightlevels:
- Bigger than 350 lux:
- Turn off sensor (motion)
- Turn off light
- Less than 350 lux:
- Turn on sensor (motion)
- Turn on light
When I tested it took some time (3-4 minutes) for the sensor to detect the change in lux. But it works…..