I don’t have a motion sensor in my bedroom, I didn’t want lights going on when my Wife is sleeping.
I do have an old phone in a dock next to the bed though. It has Wall Panel and Home Assistant apps on it, and I’m using it as a bedside clock with smarts.
Wall panel has a feature where the screen turns on when the camera detects motion. I decided that since it only does this when I wave at my clock, I may as well put it to use. So I looked at the HA app sensors and found the phones activity.
I’ve then made my most out of the way light in the bedroom trigger when the screen is on.
During the day it then trips back off when my rudimentary Wasp In a Box automation works out the bedroom is empty (it adds a number when my Hallway motion is tripped and takes one away when it’s tripped again, also uses other motion sensors to work out whether we are entering or leaving the room). At night it waits 5 minutes then turns off.
So now when I enter the room during the day and it’s dark (HA app can display lux) my light turns on, at night when I need a wee I can just wake up my bedside clock and pee, get back into bed and the light shuts off.
Nicely done. I’ve thought about converting old phones into smart wall pockets through the house since the return value has plummeted.
I have my old phone as a clock and an old tablet as a wall controller that’s really just a digital photo frame most of the time.
Do you do anything fancy with the power supplies? I’ve seen suggestions of removing the batteries and having them permanently plugged in so the batteries don’t swell over time.
Yes I do, and it’s currently bugging out so I need to fix it.
I have it on a smart plug. I have an automation that checks the battery level. When it goes below a percentage (I forget what percentage) it turns on and turns back off at 80 percent.
So it never charges over 80 percent battery level which should keep the battery healthy.
The reason it’s bugged out is because just yesterday I wired in a new plug socket with fancy usb charging points, so I switched out the smart plug for a smart usb plug (a Sonoff micro) which does not seem to be doing the job correctly.
I need to have another look at the automation.