Using Lighting

The Devicebook Lighting solution automates and controls all lights in a residence. Each room and device can be controlled independently, or the entire home all at once. Homeowners can set up automations for any of their lights, and even control them with a voice assistant.

 

Controlling Lighting

Devicebook Lighting can be controlled directly from the Devicebook App for a mobile phone, a Wall Pad, and by voice.

Devicebook App

You can manually control the entire home's lights, each room's lights, or each light individually from the Devicebook App for iOS and Android. Tap the appropriate ALL ON or ALL OFF buttons to control a location's lights, or the entire home's lights.

Tap the power button for each light to turn it on or off individually.

Wall Pad

Just as you would with your mobile phone's Devicebook App, you can control your home's lights using any Wall Pad installed in your home.

Voice

To control a Devicebook smart home by voice, link the smart home to Alexa. Then, try commands like this:

Alexa, turn on all the lights.

Alexa, turn off the Living Room lights.

You can find a full list of commands for your Devicebook Smart Home in the Devicebook App. After linking with Alexa, find the "What Can I Say" button in the Home page.

Automations

Devicebook Lighting comes with several built-in automation types that you can create and customize. They're listed below. 

Devicebook lighting also works with Routines, allowing you to create fully custom schedule-based automations.

Creating a Lighting Automation

Create lighting automations in your Devicebook App.

1. Tap the Lighting tile

2. Tap Settings

3. Tap Create New Automation, and tap Continue.

4. Choose one of the automation types, and press the arrow in the top right to continue. Learn more about the automation types below.

5. Then, follow the instructions in the app to complete setting up the automation.

Motion Lighting

When motion is detected -> turn on lights.

When motion is not detected -> turn off lights after some time.

About "No Motion Timeout"

Most motion sensors can only detect that a room is occupied when there is movement. If the occupant of a room rarely makes large movement, such as when watching a television, writing, or reading, motion sensors will incorrectly report that the room is empty, which will trigger the lights to turn off eventually.

Your Devicebook smart home solves this problem with the "No Motion Timeout". When sensors report that there is no motion in a room, the smart home will wait for a while before turning off the lights. If motion is detected again during that time, the lights will remain on, and the timer will reset. The lights will only turn off when there has been no motion detected for a period of time equal to the value of the "No Motion Timeout".

Note that the sensitivity of motion sensors can vary greatly based on the a device's position, lighting, distance from the occupant, and even the device model itself. You may need to adjust this value a few times before you find the right number for a given room.

How to Select the "No Motion Timeout" Value

This number should be low (1-5 mins) in rooms that see continuous movement while occupied, such as a kitchen or hallway.

This number should be high (10+ mins) in rooms that may see infrequent movement while occupied, such as a Living Room or Office. The value should be greater than the amount of time you expect someone would be mostly unmoving in the room. In other words, if you expect that the occupant of a room would stand up to move once every twenty minutes, set the "No Motion Timeout" for the room to be 25+ minutes.

Illuminance Lighting

When the area is dark -> turn on lights.

Note: Illuminance Lighting will not turn off any lights automatically.

If "Illuminance Lighting" is not an available option in the create automation wizard, your home is not equipped or configured with the sensors required for this feature. Contact your smart home contractor to upgrade your smart home with this feature.

About "Light Sensitivity Threshold"

Some rooms are naturally brighter or dimmer than others based on wall paints, furniture, other reflective features of the room, and the natural light that the room receives. Also, the amount of light detected by the light sensors in the room can vary greatly based on their orientation relative to a light source or window.

So, only someone standing in a room will truly know when the room is too dark, and needs the lights to be turned on.

The Light Sensitivity Threshold allows you to choose the darkness level of the room that triggers the lights to turn on. 

The lower the value, the darker the room needs to be for lights to turn on. If you find that the room's lights are not turning on even when the room is dark, try increasing the light sensitivity threshold. If the room's lights are turning on when the room is still bright, decrease the light sensitivity threshold.

Motion Lighting when Dark

When motion is detected & selected sensors see that it is is dark -> turn on lights

When motion is not detected -> turn off lights

This option will appear only if your home is equipped with motion sensors and illuminance sensors (some devices can be both).

Editing an existing automation

All of your lighting automations are editable. Just tap the edit button on the automation's tile to change the automation type, settings, when it runs, or the devices it works with.

Disabling Lighting Automation

Routines

Routines are cross-solution custom automations that are triggered based on your schedule, time of day, sunrise/sunset, or even when you head out for the day or come back home. You can create routines that control all the lights in your home, individual rooms, or even individual lights.

Learn to create routines here: Setting Up Automation.

 

Related: Designing & Installing Devicebook Lighting