Hi JHW,
Wow what a complicated story and flows. I’ll try to make a start here 
The trick is:
Start or replace (=restart) the timer when the zone gets inactive,
Stop the timer when the zone gets active
BTW it’s much easier with a presence / occupancy sensor, while you have to ‘activate’ an ordinairy motion sensor every x seconds by waving, jumping or throwing things at it:
- Entering zone:
Sensor sends a motion event / activates the zone - When there’s no motion anymore, but (a) person(s) sits / lies down in that zone (within reach of the sensor ofc):
The motion event stays on / zone stays active - Leaving zone:
Sensor releases the motion event / zone gets inactive
.
Q1: Yes, every trigger triggers once after a changed situation, not continuously. In that case it is a condition, like “AND zone X is active”
Q2: Works fine, but I prefer zone activity combined with a timer to prevent ‘lost in the dark’ situations.
Zone activity just reflects a sensor / the sensors in a zone.
When the (first) sensor triggers, the zone gets active. When the (last) sensor releases the motion, the zone gets inactive.
Q3: No, see my response to Q2. A sensor triggers once, but often stays “on” for x seconds. Yours release after 30 or 40 seconds. Many sensors have 60s by default, but there’s also sensors which can be set to 1s.
.
What I don’t get atm, why do you want to let the lights turn off when you walk out of the garden? Then you can’t see the lights when you’re not in the garden.
