Which switch for occupancy

Switches General Discussion
#1

I’ve a Lutron occupancy switch at the top of my stairs operating the basement lights (no other switches operate them). Sometimes my wife is in the basement storage or laundry room (no switch at this time) longer than 10m and the lights go off making it hard to see her way back up.

I’m thinking to install smart switches in these 3 locations (laundry room just powered on without a load), setup pairing/smart action, which when motion is detected in any of these 3 locations the basement light switch keeps the basement lights on another 10m, etc.

Can smart switches work in this way? I don’t need the fancy led bars and scene controls in these areas so what would be a good cheaper switch? Should it have occupancy sensor built in or should I pair each with a separate motion sensor? Perhaps in this way I don’t even need to install a switch in the laundry area unless these are battery hungry then maybe it makes sense to put a switch there?

#2

You could use separate motion sensors, and an automation that waits for no motion from all of them for x minutes before it turns of the light for the stairs. For this you’d have smart switches in all three rooms, and the individual motions could also turn on/off those switches.

Inovelli has a switch with a motion sensor built in presently under development, which could forgo the use of the separate motion sensors. However, without knowing the placement of your switch boxes, it impossible to tell if that would be workable.

Motion sensors do require batteries. If you get one with a CR2 or a CR123A battery, then you should get at least six months out of them, if not more, depending on the amount of use.