Zone Activity vs motion alarm?

Questions & Help
1

So what’s the difference here? Motion alarm triggers when motion is detected, that I understand, but what triggers “when zone is active”? Because I’ve experienced that it sometimes triggers with a bit of delay.

It seems that it triggers within a time range after the zone became active, where motion alarm is just at that specific time?

2

When any motion sensor in a zone detects motion, or when any contact sensor in a zone raises an alarm, the zone becomes active at once. Without any delay.

3

And many other devices also support “zone activity” often these devices also have an option to exclude from zone activity…

4

Please share your knowledge, what type of devices you know to contribute to zone activity also.

5

Hue motion sensors

6

Search the forum on “zone activity” and you will find all kind
Example

7

Well, it is a matter of wording, but I don’t consider this as generic device types. :grin:
This link also only mentions motion and contact sensors. How to get label to reflect actual alarm? - #6 by Peter_Kawa
Of course, individual exceptions are always possible.

8

You can also create virtual devices and assign them as sensors.
That way they can also trigger zone activity

1 Like
9

@SubZane
Can you show the flow?
When you use the WHEN card “The zone became active” there is no delay.
However when you use the WHEN card “The zone has been active for X minutes” there is a delay of X minutes, you can configure yourself. It also means an alarm shall be active for at least X minutes, otherwise the zone will not be activated.

10

That is correct

Yup

Nope,
The zone will be active as soon as an alarm is active.
But the flowcard will not trigger until the zone was active for X minutes

Be aware: a zone can have multiple sensors that keep the zone active:
1st a door opens and triggers the zone to be active
Then the motion sensor detects the person and becomes active
The door closes and the doorcontact is inactive
But the zone is still active because the motion sensor is active
Keep walking around and the motion sensor stays active.
After X min of being active the flow will trigger
If the zone becomes inactive earlier the flow will not trigger
Etc

11

I think you are right :wink:

12

Thanks for all the replires and stuff :slight_smile:

I think I know what’s causing my issues.

  • I’m using HUE Motion sensors and HUE dimmer switches connected to Homey.

Issues:

  • Sometimes I can stand around waving my arms and nothing happens, most of the time the flow activates and works as intended
  • Sometimes the dimmer switches doesn’t work either, I press and press and NOTHING

My guess on what’s wrong:

  • Sometimes the Homey is “offline” or at least the app tells me that, the device looks fine though (rainbow lights on the homey like normal)
  • Homey don’t report in the notifications of any offline-time? so not sure

So maybe it’s the home losing wifi connection is the problem? I read other threads about it more people having the offline problem. Any suggestion to remove the offline issues? I’m using Deco M5 mesh for wifi in the house

My flows:

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