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Rule Example - Home Away Detector

This application note shows how to create a home/away detector that automatically turns on or off a virtual switch.

Project Aim
The aim of this project is to automatically control a virtual switch:

  • Virtual switch turns on or off when someone enters or leaves the house.

Components
For this project we have used a Z-Wave system comprising of:

  • Zipato Multisensor Quad – used to detect the state of the door and motion inside the room.
  • Zipato Controller

Setup and Control
The Zipato Multisensor Quad was ‘Included’ into the Z-Wave network by ‘Adding’ it to the Zipato Controller, further information is available in "Adding new devices on the Zipato Controller" section.
To store the home or away status, a virtual switch was created, further information is available in the "Virtual Switch - Adding" section.
Then we created the following rules in the Zipato Rules Creator to control how the Home/Away detector would work. For more details see the "Introduction of Rules Creator" section.

These rules work as follows:

Door rule

  1. Main 'When' block wraps the whole rule. The rule is activated when Zipato Multisensor Quad door detector is set to open.
  2. The 'If Else' condition test the 'Motion' variable (0 = no motion, 1 = motion).
  3. The 'Action' block turns on the virtual switch, someone is home.
  4. The 'Wait' block pause the rule for 120 minutes.
  5. The 'If' condition test the 'Motion' variable (0 = no motion, 1 = motion).
  6. The 'Action' block turns off the virtual switch, someone just left home.
  7. Don't forget to 'Save' your rule and then to 'Synchronize' it at the end.

Motion rule

  1. Main 'When' block wraps the whole rule. The rule is activated when Zipato Multisensor Quad motion detector is set to motion.
  2. The 'Set variable' block set the variable 'Motion' to 1 (motion detected).
  3. The 'Wait' block pause the rule for 120 minutes.
  4. The 'Set variable' block set the variable 'Motion' to 0 (no motion detected).
  5. Don't forget to 'Save' your rule and then to 'Synchronize' it at the end.

More on: See here Rule Example description

Tutorial:

Video guideHome Away DetectorLoads from YouTube when played