Automate night light when daughter gets out of bed?

[amber lark]

Daughter switching from crib to bed, she sleeps in a totally dark room but I'm worried she'll have a hard time getting around if she gets up in the middle of the night. Please suggest how I can automate a light ONLY when she gets out of bed. Thanks!

[brisk dome]

some ideas you can consider:
mmwave sensor with zones and set up zones around the bed
motion sensor under the bed point out that can active on feet appearing
pressure sensor under mattress
weight sensors under legs of bed

the mmwave sensor with zones is probably going to be the easiest to set up. but this is a problem with many solutions depending on your exalt setup and how you want to go about it.

[amber lark]

Thanks for your input! Last time I was checking into mmWave, the tech was brand new in home automation and the only model available was the Aqara FP2. Are these fairly reliable (mmWave in general, not specifically the FP2).

I want to avoid "false positive" conditions where the light turns on because she gets detected moving a lot in bed. I also hadn't considered weight/pressure sensors. I'll have to look those up

[brisk dome]

for mmwave with zone functionality: I have some of these - https://shop.everythingsmart.io/products/everything-presence-lite which supports zones so you can limit to to motion in specific areas for a trigger. apollo also make some that do the same but i havent used them myself

[amber lark]

@brisk dome is this device fully baked? Or just a pretty container for an ESP32? I see the page mentioning its compatible with 5+ different mmWave sensors - do I need to buy this and also separately buy an actual mmWave sensor to plug into it?

[brisk dome]

it works out the box, it just has a lot of modification options if you so wish.

and yes, under the hood it runs on an esp32 running esphome

there is an addon that helps set the zones for them too

example:

each zone then gets its own occupancy sensor you can automate on

[amber lark]

Thanks! I guess for the zones you just move around and fiddle with them until you find where the bed is?

[brisk dome]

more or less but it shows detection as a dot so you can bring it up on a phone/tablet and stand in the corners of the bed and see where the dot it. this will give you a general idea. but it will most likely need a bit of fine tuning

you can also make a "not" zone too that effects the main entity. and select the bed to do the job inversely.

[unique pebble]

proximity sensor??

[brisk dome]

?

[unique pebble]

put sensor near bed and calibrate, if not in bed (no proximity) then trigger whatever.

[solid night]

I use a normal pir sensor for that.
Mounted in a way it only can see my kids feet when they get up

[clear glade]

@amber lark I use an EPlite for my bed detection with great sucess:

It's aimed down tward the bed with a 60degree angle

some false negatives when I am under 5-6 pillows, but solid most of thenight.

You could couple this with a bayesian filter or her Android phone states. (This is how I detect when the kid of my wife awakes for the alarm system)

[amber lark]

Android phone states will probably work in about 10 years when I give her one 🤣

But thanks everyone!! I'll check the available options and grab something this week

[atomic cedar]

I use pressure sensors in my office chair and in my sofa with a tuned ZigBee flood detector modified to use the pressure sensor instead of the double pin water sensor. Totally reliable but you need to tinker

[amber lark]

Why was the pressure sensor alone not enough?

[atomic cedar]

Because I brought a pressure sensor alone, is similar to a switch. To connect that via ZigBee to HA, what I explained is the simplest way AFAIK

[arctic mason]

I’ve used weight sensors with success. Cheap, reliable, and so accurate that it could tell who was in the bed