I’m slowly rolling out more and more automations across my house.
I’m hoping to add presence sensors to my living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom. I already have one in my workshop but that’s a no-go area for pets due to safety concerns.
My question is, how have people found the FP2 in terms of being triggered by cats? I have two small cats and am concerned they will render the presence sensors useless in any room they enter.
not very good, Im afraid. I have two adult cats and I have to rely on other sensors because the living room lights would keep turning on and off. all night long. sorry.
Ah that’s a shame. Have you found any good solutions?
For these rooms I’m not too fussed about being able to tell how many people or in what area (though it would be nice), I just want to know if there are people (humans) in the room.
I installed the FP2 sensor in a large room at a height of about 2 meters with a slight downward angle. Due to the downward angle, cats were detected and the light controlled by it was turned on. I also had problems with “ghosts” that did not leave the room, so the light was not turned off.
Based on this experience, I installed the FP2 sensor on another side of the room at a height of about 1.5 meters without any tilt, so that it can now monitor a small area of the room and only the upper area where people are present. Since then, no cats have been detected. I also declared all areas around the zone to be monitored as entrances and exits. Now I have almost no problems with “ghosts” and the lights are usually turned off automatically.
You have to experiment a little with the installation of the FP2 sensor, but then it should work. If the angle and alignment are correct, then no cats should be detected. Unless the sensor is pointing at a cat tree or a table where the cats jump on.
In case the lights don’t turn off automatically, I’ve set up a scene in the Aqara app that sends a signal to the FP2 sensor that no one is in the zone. I can trigger this scene via Siri to turn off the lights. My door lock also triggers this scene.
And in case the light is triggered by the cats at night, I have an automation that is triggered when I activate the night alarm. This automation deactivates the other automation that turns on the lights. But I mainly needed this for the first installation variant, where the cats were detected.
The same applies to the Aqara P2 sensor. When placed high up and without any tilt, cats cannot trigger it.
I don’t have a cat, but fp2 in general is not greatly reliable… it works, but in my case, I manage lights at the dining table, and quite often it stops detecting a person that is barely mooving and sitting at the table
Yes, you’re right. I’ve seen some YouTubers who had the same problem. They suggest that it would be better to install the sensor at a height of about 2 meters above the floor and tilt it sharply downward so that people lying on the couch or sitting on a table are recognized correctly. But this is exactly the type of installation you don’t want if you have cats in the house.