Lights acting on their own, not following rules

I have different instances of lights turning on and off not following rules. All Z-wave devices.

  1. GE switch on my outside lights. These will turn on by themselves a couple times a month. I rarely turn them on manually (once a month?). The only rule I have on them is to turn on if alarm goes off.
  2. Schlage plug dimmer (which looks exactly like my go control ones) - sometimes turns on at a dim setting on it’s own. And once dim, the rule turn on is dim also. I have a rule on this one to turn on for 20 minutes with a motion sensor during evening and morning hours. But I will find it on it the middle of the day. Maybe happens once a week
  3. GE switch - i have a rule to turn on an laundry room on movement and door opening for 20 minutes. If i am in the room, sometimes it will turn off. I have tested this one a lot. If i am moving around, most of the time it will keep extending the on time (like it should). But every once and a while it just turns off. I have tested by adding a light on a plug dimmer that turns on for 3 minutes to match the motion sensor 3 minute time out. I have had the room light go off while the 3 minute light is still on. (my wife hates me for this one, “why do I need this when it goes dark on me”)

Thoughts?

I have 2GIG GC2

Typically in a circumstance where a question comes up about why certain actions occur or why rules do not fire, we would check in the history and match up what is reported there with the times you reference the problem occurring.

Unfortunately this does not appear to be related to a suretyDIY account so we cannot see any details of your account.

In general, Z-wave automation commands are not typically sent from Alarm.com. Rules are saved locally and the panel processes the commands when applicable.

The only rule I have on them is to turn on if alarm goes off.
Schlage plug dimmer (which looks exactly like my go control ones) – sometimes turns on at a dim setting on it’s own. And once dim, the rule turn on is dim also. I have a rule on this one to turn on for 20 minutes with a motion sensor during evening and morning hours. But I will find it on it the middle of the day. Maybe happens once a week

The likely answer to these is someone manually turning on the light, or a local alarm occurring and turning on the light. We cannot see the rule to verify what is selected, and we can’t see history to verify whether any mobile commands were sent, so there would be a lot of guessing with regard to these questions, I’m afraid. Would you mind posting a screenshot of that rule configuration for the rules you have set up?

The best thing to do in this case would be to note the times and days you notice the light being on outside the expected time and check your Alarm.com history. For suretyDIY users, we are able to check our dealer history as well.

Do you have any other users with access to the Alarm.com app who might be turning the lights on?

GE switch – i have a rule to turn on an laundry room on movement and door opening for 20 minutes. If i am in the room, sometimes it will turn off. I have tested this one a lot. If i am moving around, most of the time it will keep extending the on time (like it should). But every once and a while it just turns off. I have tested by adding a light on a plug dimmer that turns on for 3 minutes to match the motion sensor 3 minute time out. I have had the room light go off while the 3 minute light is still on. (my wife hates me for this one, “why do I need this when it goes dark on me

This one is a little easier to troubleshoot, because the issue is going to be the motion detector. Wireless security PIR detectors are designed to filter false alarms, limit repeated activation, conserve battery, and above all catch an acute intrusion. They are not designed to be and do not function well as sustained occupancy sensors.

The wireless motion sensor does not necessarily reset after 3 minutes. The PIR1-345 resets after about 3 minutes of no motion, meaning if someone is in the range of the detector, it may take far longer to reset for another activation.

Your best bet here is to use a separate wired motion detector, programmed as a no-response type and used to turn the light on for any application where the light needs to be constantly responsive to occupancy.

For the issues related to lights acting out of plan, I have another data point that might help. I was using a SawsAll in a room with two GE switches. One time when I made the saw go and the lights turned off at the same time. This is a different room that the only rule I have is to turn off when I arm the house.
Is there a chance there voltage fluctuations can affect the switches? Maybe my 1950s house has voltage fluctuations.
So far that is the only clue I have.
(to answer some of your other questions, I am the only one that uses the app, nobody is using the switches when the odd things happen)

On the motion sensor. Can you recommend a wired sensor.

Thanks for thoughts
(no i dont have my service thru you, sorry. Maybe in the future)

Is there a chance there voltage fluctuations can affect the switches? Maybe my 1950s house has voltage fluctuations.

Dirty or fluctuating voltage may cause any number of issues I suppose. It is difficult to say exactly how the device would react, unfortunately. If you see surges this may be a cause. Usually it is best to try the common troubleshooting steps first, and if a rule may be misfiring you’ll generally want to delete the rule in Alarm.com, wait ten minutes, then create the rule again to send it fresh to the panel.

Since it seems most if not all of your lights are affected, have you removed all rules affecting a few lights to see if they still come on unexpectedly? If so that would definitely indicate something else, possibly power related, is at fault.

On the motion sensor. Can you recommend a wired sensor.

Thanks for thoughts
(no i dont have my service thru you, sorry. Maybe in the future)

Most any wired motion detector would work, given that it would not be operating in any sort of power save mode. I typically recommend Honeywell Motion Detectors.

A recessed-mount wired motion detector like the 995 may be a good option for the room you describe.

We’re always happy to assist DIYers!

Two follow-ups from this. I did delete all my rules and recreate key ones. It stopped happening. I then started adding back in rules and at some point it started happening again. About once a week one of a few lights will turn on or off on it’s own.

So to this comment from before:
“Unfortunately this does not appear to be related to a suretyDIY account so we cannot see any details of your account”
If I switch my service to you, could you help more?

Two follow-ups from this. I did delete all my rules and recreate key ones. It stopped happening. I then started adding back in rules and at some point it started happening again. About once a week one of a few lights will turn on or off on it’s own.

Do you recall for how long the rules worked as intended? What about when the rules started acting up, was there a specific rule that caused this?
Is it specific devices, or is it more random?

If I switch my service to you, could you help more?

That is correct. In cases such as yours, we would be able to verify events in history and match them up with the rules they are connected with to have a better understanding of what the root cause of the issue might be. We would also have access to various commands to alleviate issues that only can be sent via Alarm.com dealer tools.

Getting back to this topic from a year ago.
I am now a customer so i am going back to the statement that you could not see more due to this.
So yesterday at 6:17 PM i opened the garage door to the house which turns on a light for an hour. The light then shut off a couple minutes later.
Odd behavior like this does not happen often. This is the first i noticed since i joined you.
What can we look at more?

Mike

Happy to assist! To confirm, you are referring to the Laundry Light correct?

Is it just this Light you are experiencing issues with currently?

There are 3 separate automation rules all governing the same Z-Wave switch, Laundry Light.

Each rule is set to turn on that light for 1 hour when a different sensor is tripped.

In this case, one of those sensors (Sunroom East Entry Door) was triggered about an hour before the the Laundry Light turned off.

In cases such as this, the first instance of a rule being sent to a switch would take precedence.

When the “garage door to the house” sensor was triggered, the Laundry Light had already been triggered off of the rule for the Sunroom sensor

So do understand right that it was luck that lined up the 1 hour since the Sunroom door and when the garage door opened? So the two commands crossed paths?

Do the timers get reset when a new event happens? In this example with three sensors to the same 1 hour rule: If i opened one of doors every 25 minutes, would the light stay on until an hour after the last door?

Do the timers get reset when a new event happens? In this example with three sensors to the same 1 hour rule: If i opened one of doors every 25 minutes, would the light stay on until an hour after the last door?

When triggered by the same rule, yes. If you have a Rule to turn on a light for 5 minutes when a specific sensor opens, then turn off, if you open that sensor every 4 minutes the timer will keep getting reset.

However when multiple rules control the same light, the “Turn Off” timer is not reset if Rule A originally triggers the light and Rule B fires later.

In this case one rule with an hour timer fired about an hour before the other rule. The first one’s timer then expired.

I have a similar issue with our garage lights. We have two garage doors and the 3 other doors to the same room for a total of 5. I have 5 separate rules to turn on the lights when the door opens. I’ve kept extending the time since it was turning off the lights when I was in the garage. After reading this I understand why it’s happening but wondered if there was any way to resolve it

Rule activation does get complicated when numerous sensors independently control a light with an off timer. Leaving the light on indefinitely and manually shutting off the light, or turning on when open, and off when closed, might be alternatives depending on usage. Otherwise fine tuning the off timer is necessary.