Usually the lights only need to be on sometimes. But in our home, we find that they are left on in the hall and the laundry room, and we finally realized why: those are places where your hands are usually full, and it's hard to operate the switch. Ergo, the light stays on.
In our time in Denmark, we've also seen occupancy sensors used extensively in bathrooms, which just seems more hygienic to us: one less thing to clean. Shopping tips after the jump...
Saving Without Thinking: Occupancy Sensors
Look for the following features:
• Field of view: measured in degrees, as viewed from above. The ideal is 180°, which would mean a full view of the room, but most are slightly less than this.
• Manual override: sometimes you want the light on anyway; but in most situations, choose a switch without a manual override, as they tend to get switched on and forgotten.
• Time-delay interval: use two switches, for example, to turn the light off 15 seconds after someone leaves a bathroom, and the exaust fan off after 15 minutes.
If you've used a particular brand, please let us know about your experience.
Comments (5)
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One experience I've had in public bathrooms with these switches: they go off if you stop moving (ie sitting on the toilet). It's a great idea, I'm just not sure a bathroom is a good place for it.
view Eliza's profile
plus, do you really want all the lights in the bathroom to go on when you got to tinkle late at night? talk about rude awakening. if it had a dinner built in, then maybe you could set it low....
view chris_94131's profile
Occupancy sensors in the bathroom would put an end to relaxing bubble baths, that's for sure, unless one wanted to take them by candlelight.
They'd also be awkward for those bouts of food poisoning or stomach flu when one feels safest lying on the bath mat rather than trundling oneself back to bed.
My experience with those things in classrooms -- where they do make a lot of sense -- is that it takes more motion than one would expect to keep the lights on.
view wende in the twin cities's profile
I think they would be best in a garage or shed, and also in laundryrooms or closets, obviously. Alot of closets still have flip switches that people forget often to turn off.
view Amphetamine's profile
i have the pictured sensor, made by leviton. so far it works great in the hallway. at first it was strange to have the lights turn on automatically, but i'm used to it now and everyone that comes over loves the idea and wants one too.
this one has two adjustments that the user can make, first is the amount of time the lights stay on after last movement. second is the sensitivity of the sensor, because it's a hallway, i have mine set to very low light so that it doesn't go on during the day when there is filtered light through bedroom doors.
view eec007's profile