Re: Occupancy detection

["Bill Kearney" <wkearney-99@hot-mail-com>]

> I don't want anyone to be able to press ALL LIGHTS OFF in one part of the
> house while a person is descending the stairs in another.

But just how likely is that to happen?  That and any motion sensor would
trip again on seeing motion and turn the like back on.  What's going to
happen faster?  Controlling 'All Off' but keeping exceptions for currently
detected motion cannot be accomplished at the device level.  It would
require a computer (dedicated PC or whatever) and intercepting the 'All Off'
functions entirely.  This may be a bigger problem as the 'All off' function
is usually directly sent from controls to devices and can't be easily
disregarded.  If keypads that had 'All off' functionality had the ability to
reprogram the housecode for just that key then it might work.  But none
offer this, they only allow one housecode for all buttons, not individually.
You'd have to change the housecode and use a PC to intercept and retransmit
all keypresses, not just the 'All off'.  This adds an unacceptable delay as
the commands have to get sent twice.  They're already 'slow enough' from the
keypads directly to the devices.  Adding a PC into the loop will definitely
be a WAF problem.

I'd consider adding logic on a PC that tracked motion sensor status and IF
an 'All off' was detected that signals be sent to immediately bring those
lights back on.  But with a timer that monitored for any additional motion
detection.  As in, the stairs sensed motion, an 'all off' was detected, turn
the stairs back on and wait X period of time to see if any other motion was
detected, if not, turn the stairs back off again.

I'm guessing it'd be far too much work trying to come up with a "fix" to a
relatively unlikely or infrequent scenario.

-Bill Kearney