# Zone inactive for x minutes triggers, while there is motion, leaving me in the dark **URL:** \ **Category:** Flows\ **Created:** [May 10, 2024, 1:58pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/zone-inactive-for-x-minutes-triggers-while-there-is-motion-leaving-me-in-the-dark/109657 "2024-05-10T13:58:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 5
**Author:** ![Peter\_Kawa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/peter_kawa/32/173848_2.png) [@Peter\_Kawa](https://community.homey.app/u/Peter_Kawa)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 3:52pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/zone-inactive-for-x-minutes-triggers-while-there-is-motion-leaving-me-in-the-dark/109657/5 "2024-05-10T15:52:52Z")
Hi Rrrr, Thanks for starting a topic on this one. To me, the title doesn’t reflect my experiences. The ‘zone is inactive’ trigger works flawless here, so I think the title should be “Zone inactive _for x minutes_ triggers, while there is motion, leaving me in the dark”. So here’s my setup: 2x Pro19 Sensors: -Aqara zigbee motion + contact (per Homey, and later on per HA zigbee2mqtt), -Sonoff zigbee contact (per HA z2m), -DIY [presence & motion](https://github.com/PeterKawa/esp_motion_mmwave) wifi per ESPhome I do not own sensors which should be polled I encountered the fact the ‘zone was inactive for x minutes’ trigger issue when I started with Homey, say Q4 2020 After that, I did not want to do any further tests. What’s the point tbh, when it seems not to be a generic ‘bug’ of the timed zone inactivity detection. I keep ‘promoting’ the use the ‘zone is inactive’ trigger with use of an additional Chronograph timer, like this: ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/uploads/athom/original/3X/b/1/b1a9d74d5faa214c510e62b3240b441b8ee4eac8.png) because of the advantages: 1. with a Pro19, the steps between the lower values are far too large, pretty useless to me; I can only pick 1 or 5 or 10 minutes, while I like to be able to fine tune it, say 0.5, 1.5, or 3mins > [@Zone inactive for x minutes doesn't work with variable... How to troubleshoot](https://community.homey.app/t/zone-inactive-for-x-minutes-doesnt-work-with-variable-how-to-troubleshoot/109598/6): > > ![Screenshot_20240509-173616_Firefox](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/uploads/athom/original/3X/3/f/3f26ff9c6e27c68116de645a0419a904976c95fe.jpeg) 1. with a Chronograph timer I can set a free to choose duration time from 1s. in steps of 1s. 2. chronograph timers survive a power outage / reboot, because they don’t just count down, they count towards a timestamp, created by timer start time + duration time. _This way, your lights / devices still will be turned off after Homey has started, while there’s no activity_ - test flows: [https://homey.app/f/30e9zZ](https://homey.app/f/30e9zZ) [https://homey.app/f/0hy9zZ](https://homey.app/f/0hy9zZ) result: ![Screenshot_20240510-173404_Homey](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/uploads/athom/original/3X/c/b/cb8274f30f8e0ab949ca576befff844e40f2d7c3.jpeg) ‘zone is inactive for x minutes’ trigger don’t survive a reboot (as well as onboard flow delays) - test flows: [https://homey.app/f/3ZbbzZ](https://homey.app/f/3ZbbzZ) [https://homey.app/f/fbdbzZ](https://homey.app/f/fbdbzZ) result: ![Screenshot_20240510-174335_Homey](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/uploads/athom/original/3X/3/5/35671b84ddbbb231bab1a5724ed182e053f7d421.jpeg) 1. it’s possible to use a numeric variable as timer duration value. It’s easier to finetune, or even set different inactive times for different situations . @Marius_Stensrod smart fix! > [@Marius\_Stensrod](#): > > So my “fix” is like this: > > ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/uploads/athom/original/3X/8/c/8c802065f5a24c1b71437b0418ea6f94b323f635.png) --- _[View the full topic](https://community.homey.app/t/zone-inactive-for-x-minutes-triggers-while-there-is-motion-leaving-me-in-the-dark/109657)._