I’m using an Aqara FP2 with zones for lighting in my office, and I’m interested in how others handle adjoining spaces.
Imagine a side room with only one doorway: you pass through an FP2 zone to enter it, but once inside you’re outside the sensor’s coverage. You haven’t left the area entirely, and you have to pass the FP2 again to come back out.
At the moment, I combine the FP2 zone with a separate motion sensor in the side room and a delay before switching the light off.
Has anyone handled this using the FP2 alone? Can you reliably distinguish someone entering the side room from someone returning, and keep the lights on while they’re out of view? Or have you found a separate sensor in the side room is the most practical approach?
I’d be interested in your zone layouts and automation logic, particularly how you avoid lights switching off while someone is still in the adjoining room. Thanks!
I’ve found that a separate motion sensor in the side room is the simplest way to handle this. The FP2 can take care of the main area and the doorway, while the second sensor keeps the light on once someone is out of the FP2’s coverage. I’d also add a short delay before switching the light off, just to avoid it turning off while someone is still in the side room.
@phiebs you can get surprisingly far with the FP2 alone. The pattern to search for is “wasp in a box”: if the only way out of a space passes a sensor, and that sensor hasn’t seen anyone leave, whoever went in must still be in there.
For your layout:
1. Make the doorway its own small zone on the FP2, covering just the path into the side room.
2. Track a “someone in the side room” flag (a virtual switch / helper). Turn it ON when the doorway zone is triggered and then the rest of the office goes empty: the last place anyone was seen was the doorway, so they went through it. Turn it OFF when the doorway zone is triggered again and the main zones pick someone up: they came back out.
3. Lights stay on while the flag is on, no matter what the main zones say.
4. Add a safety timeout (a couple of hours) that clears the flag, so one missed exit doesn’t leave the lights on all night.
Where the FP2-only version gets shaky: two people moving at once, or someone walking past the doorway without going in. That’s why I’d agree with @michaelphillips for the reliable version, but I’d use the side-room sensor differently: let it confirm or clear the flag rather than run the lights on its own. The FP2 knows someone probably went in; the second sensor proves it, and its “no motion for X minutes” is a clean way to clear the flag if the exit gets missed.