I previously used a SmartThings motion sensor but, for whatever reason, that sensor had 2 problems that this sensor (when used in conjunction with a hue bridge) does not. First - that one took a moment to respond. It wasn’t a long time per se but it was long enough that I might as well just go flip the light switch myself. Secondly the SmartThings motion sensor would sometimes lose connection. It wasn’t often but it happened a few times and in fact the final time I was bever able to get it connected again. So I bought the hue motion sensor. BIG IMPROVEMENT. It registers the motion and triggers the associated routines nearly instantly and it has never once lost connection. It costs more than the SmartThings one but I have a lot of smart home devices and the best advice i can give is : reliability is king. Its not worth saving money on a device that won’t work every time you need it to work. TLDR: Pros: — works nearly instantly — reliable and stable (stays connected) — compatibility with a huge variety of other smarthome ecosystems (I use it in alexa routines which allow it to control almost anything that works with alexa — great value (worth the price) Cons: — does cost more than budget options Read more
Typically expensive Hue accessory, but worth it for offline operation. Requires the Hue hub, which is where you want to set up the motion lights (as opposed to in an Alexa routine). The motion lights continue to work, even if you unplug your router, the Internet is having trouble, etc. What a revelation, that these are able to match the utility of "dumb" motion lights, ancient X10 systems, etc. :) Very easy to set up with the Hue hub and app and Alexa sees them almost immediately as well. Give it a name, tell it which room (or zone) it is in and it is off and running. That being said, $50 is still pretty outrageous for such a thing. This is my second one and the first has worked trouble-free for years. Come to think of it, the battery should be getting pretty low by now, but the app has not yet warned about it. They certainly outlast the sticky switches, despite near constant use in my application. Update for Alexa routine users: as expected, the extra complication of communicating between Philips and Amazon (through the Cloud?!) can break, rendering related routines useless. Light still comes on, of course, but no routine-based extras while they work out whatever happened. This feature had been reliable up until now. :( Update: They fixed the routines quickly. No issues since. Read more
I got this to trigger the lights in my closet as I've usually got a handful of something as I'm walking in there. It works nicely now that I have the right lights paired with it. I've been a Hue fan since the beginning so some of my lights are the older "less of a spectrum" or just "white lights". They're all updated with the latest software but I found that they weren't always turning on even though the sensor was triggered. When you first set things up, it works. But after a certain period of time ( maybe 10 minutes ) the sensor would trigger but the lights stopped turning on. I deleted the lights entirely, deleted the sensor ( from the app ) and recreated everything and it worked again. But again, after a short time, even though the sensor would trigger, the lights stopped illuminating. I got some newer lights - the full spectrum colored - and updated those as well. Same problem occurred which left me stumped because those are the latest lights Philips offers. I let the problem sit for a few weeks and went back to it the other day... this time using yet another new set of colored full-spectrum bulbs. These came already updated. The software didn't indicate they needed an update at all and lo and behold, those bulbs do NOT have the problem. So... I don't think it was ever a sensor issue, but there may have been a software update that fixed the issue with the associated bulbs. Not sure. I'm just happy they're working now and the feature is awesome. Read more
