# I want more control over my recessed lights in my exterior soffit



## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

I just installed some LED recessed lights on the exterior of my home, under the soffit in the front of my house. I have them all wired to one light switch currently, but want to have more control over the lights. 

Here's what I MUST HAVE:


Have the option for the lights to come on dusk to dawn via photosensor
Have the option to turn on or off the lights at any time regardless of the photosensor sensing daylight or not
Have the option to manually dim the lights at any time

Here's some additional wants, but not completely necessary:


Have a motion sensor option, where the lights are dimmed when normally on but brighter if the motion sensor is triggered
If no motion sensor will work with this setup, I'd like to be able to remotely turn the lights on from my car when I pull up to the house and the lights are not on yet

I'm not looking for some WIFI controller option that works off a smartphone. Nothing at Lowe's came even close to addressing the above needs and wants. Can someone point me in the right direction here?


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## Ron6519 (Mar 28, 2007)

You can have a photo cell OR you can turn the lights on and off. You can't have both.


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## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

Thanks for the reply. I'm surprised there isn't something out there that does this. I don't think I'm asking for the moon, and can't imagine that I am the only one wanting more control over exterior lighting. Surely there is some work around though, maybe adding a second switch or something? One for the photosensor and one bypassing the lights?


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## joed (Mar 13, 2005)

You can certainly have a switch to override the photocell. 
If you put a switch in series with the photocell then the switch will be able to turn off the lights at any time. If this switch was a dimmer is would dim the lights as long as it was compatible with the photocell.
If you put the switch in parallel with the photocell then you have the option to turn on the lights at any time.
If you want both options then the parallel switch would need to parallel both the sensor and the first switch. This would override photo and dimming options.


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## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

joed said:


> You can certainly have a switch to override the photocell.
> If you put a switch in series with the photocell then the switch will be able to turn off the lights at any time. If this switch was a dimmer is would dim the lights as long as it was compatible with the photocell.
> If you put the switch in parallel with the photocell then you have the option to turn on the lights at any time.
> If you want both options then the parallel switch would need to parallel both the sensor and the first switch. This would override photo and dimming options.


Thanks joed. I figured that would work. As far as having a motion sensor in the mix as well, with a dim setting for normal operation and a bright setting when the motion sensor is triggered, any thoughts on that? Does such a product exist?


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## joed (Mar 13, 2005)

The motion sensor would need to be in parallel with the dimmer. However I don't know how applying power across motion sensor would affect it. Might damage it. The dimmer would be applying power to output of the sensor at the same time power was applied to the input.


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## Arrow3030 (Apr 19, 2015)

I'd use a single pole double throw center off switch and a single pole double throw relay with 120v control to avoid back feeding devices.


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## dmxtothemax (Oct 26, 2010)

All of this is possible.
First use a master switch.
Followed by a motion control with a bypass switch.
Then followed by a dimer also with a bypass switch.


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## Colbyt (Jan 27, 2014)

In my part of the country photosensors are not very reliable due to haze and clouds. A timer would be my choice.

In 1980's I have a pair of floods over the garage that I could turn on with the second button on my garage door opener. I'm sure a RF switch is still out there. Doing all this as you posted sounds challenging. Doing parts of it are absolutely possible.


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## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

Thanks again for the replies. I found a product that does pretty much everything I want:

http://www.outdoormotionlighting.com/location/house/diy-motion-light-sl-6053/



> The unit works with lights up to 300 watts, and has a dimmer switch with five levels of brightness (won’t work for fluorescent bulbs, but you shouldn’t put them in motion lighting anyway). The energy saving nature of outdoor motion lighting combined with the dimmer switch reduces the need for energy efficient outdoor light bulbs. It has a dusk mode option which can turn the lights on at a low level for a few hours after dusk. They will brighten to full if motion is detected. Due to all the features, this product isn’t really cheaper than a normal outdoor motion detector light, but wireless motion detectors give you the flexibility to use the lighting of your choice and place the motion sensor out of sight. It is sensitive to a 240° angle and does have a sensitivity adjustment. When you turn the main switch on, the light stays on. When you turn it off, it is in motion sensor mode.



I'm not crazy about it being battery powered, I would be willing to sacrifice the lack of hard-wired functionality since it meets all of my requirements otherwise. The only problem is, I can't find any place that still sells it. Something like this is ideal for me over piecing together a combination of individual components. If anyone knows of a similar product that is actually available for sale still, let me know!


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## miamicuse (Nov 13, 2011)

I guess I am not following the logic of some of the requirements.

If it's dusk till dawn that means it would be ON when it's dark. If it's on through the night what is the purpose of the motion sensor? To turn it on when it senses motion during the day? Or is it to turn it on when you have manually turned it off during the night?

I have something similar, although not as complicated in terms of requirements as yours, and after researching what's out there, I did away with using photocells and opt with simplicity.

I end up getting this switch: GE SunSmart™ In-Wall Self Adjusting Digital Timer
It is a single switch, but does most of what I wanted.


No photocell for dusk to dawn, but you can set a timer that knows when it's sunrise and sunset which is essentially the same thing. On top of that, I like the ability to be able to have different weekdays and weekend settings, so you can program it to light up differently 7 days of the week. In addition, after having the lights on from sunset to sunrise a couple of months, I changed my mind and decided I only want the lights on from sunset to about 2am, and then from 5am to sunrise. It can do that. None of the other timers can. It also has a vacation random on/off settings which is quite useful.


It has an on and off manual override.


You can probably add a motion sensing or dimming by pass...when I did my exterior soffit lights all the way around I thought about doing that, but after thinking it over, I went with something different, I added security flood lights at the four corners instead. My reason to do so would be:


(1) I have trouble deciding where to mount a motion sensor for a set of soffit lights. I want the motion sensor to be all around not just in the front entrance. If an intruder was to approach from the backyard or climb the side fence I want the lights to come on...so that means there needs to be multiple motion sensors.


(2) If some car or someone comes up I want the entire driveway and lawn to be lit, not just the narrow strip below the soffit.


So I got four motion sensor security flood lights with the 270 degree angle and mounted one at each corner of the eave.


To me that was more practical for what I needed.


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## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

miamicuse said:


> I guess I am not following the logic of some of the requirements.
> 
> If it's dusk till dawn that means it would be ON when it's dark. If it's on through the night what is the purpose of the motion sensor? To turn it on when it senses motion during the day? Or is it to turn it on when you have manually turned it off during the night?


The way the lights are now, they just have one setting... bright as hell. My house is lit up 3x more than anyone else around me. I want the lights to be dimmer when on normally (dusk to dawn), BUT, if someone approaches the house, then I want the lights to go full blast. The sensor I linked to in my last post does exactly this. That's what I want the motion sensor for. I'm only controlling the front of the house with this setup, so I only need one motion sensor. 

I thought about a timer too. But in the end, I decided that I didn't want to adjust the timer all the time to keep up with the changes in sunrise/sunset. If I can't find anything that does what I want I may have to consider the timer option, but I don't want to go that route if I can do it they way I described. I don't need different settings for different days. I don't need my lights to go off at a time in the middle of the night. The vacation option is cool, but I already do something similar with my interior lights to simulate someone being home, and I'd rather have the exterior lights on all the time. 

Your setup sounds great for your needs, but they way I described my ideal setup would fit my needs to a T. That sensor I linked to does everything I want but nobody carries it anymore. I just emailed Heath Zenith to see what they have to say about offering a similar product or where to find the one I linked to.


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## Arrow3030 (Apr 19, 2015)

You don't need to adjust timers for sunrise/sunset anymore. Look for in wall astronomical timers. Many brands make them. I usually sell an intermatic ST01.


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## miamicuse (Nov 13, 2011)

MetalMan8008 said:


> The way the lights are now, they just have one setting... bright as hell. My house is lit up 3x more than anyone else around me. I want the lights to be dimmer when on normally (dusk to dawn), BUT, if someone approaches the house, then I want the lights to go full blast. The sensor I linked to in my last post does exactly this. That's what I want the motion sensor for. I'm only controlling the front of the house with this setup, so I only need one motion sensor.
> 
> I thought about a timer too. But in the end, I decided that I didn't want to adjust the timer all the time to keep up with the changes in sunrise/sunset. If I can't find anything that does what I want I may have to consider the timer option, but I don't want to go that route if I can do it they way I described. I don't need different settings for different days. I don't need my lights to go off at a time in the middle of the night. The vacation option is cool, but I already do something similar with my interior lights to simulate someone being home, and I'd rather have the exterior lights on all the time.
> 
> Your setup sounds great for your needs, but they way I described my ideal setup would fit my needs to a T. That sensor I linked to does everything I want but nobody carries it anymore. I just emailed Heath Zenith to see what they have to say about offering a similar product or where to find the one I linked to.


OK so your motion sensor is not for turning on/off your lights but to provide less dimming.

There is no need to adjust a timer to keep up with sunset/sunrise. It is a "Sunsmart" timer.


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## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

Well either way, the timer isn't going to move the lights from dim to bright when someone approaches, so I still need the motion sensor setup. I appreciate the ideas but I really am just looking for exactly what I have described and referenced with the link to the Heath Zenith SL-6053.


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## red92s (Nov 14, 2012)

MetalMan8008 said:


> Well either way, the timer isn't going to move the lights from dim to bright when someone approaches, so I still need the motion sensor setup. I appreciate the ideas but I really am just looking for exactly what I have described and referenced with the link to the Heath Zenith SL-6053.


If they discontinued that product, it was probably for a good reason. They still sell the switches.


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## Arrow3030 (Apr 19, 2015)

I agree with red. You're asking for a lot of control which means more wire, more switches, more money. I suggested using relays so you'd only have one switch to set the "mode" and the dimmer to set the light level.


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## jimmydean (Sep 15, 2012)

I'm trying to avoid a complicated setup. The product I linked to does everything I want, only needing to replace one switch and installing the wireless motion sensor. That's about as simple as it gets. I just need to find such a product that's still on the market. Piecing together various individual components is my last resort. You can assume just about anything about why this particular company no longer make this particular item, but the fact is, if one company made it, I'm sure there are others out there. I'll just keep looking. Thanks anyway guys, but I'm getting nowhere here! I'm out.


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## Arrow3030 (Apr 19, 2015)

Right on. Good luck! Let us know if you get what you want and how it works.


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## Oso954 (Jun 23, 2012)

I would contact Heath Zenith and ask them about availability or a replacement model.

I am not sure the product would work for you. As I recall, it uses leading edge dimming technology which works best with incandescent bulbs. It definately did not work well with fluorescents, so I question it's ability to work well with your LEDs.


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## BroMo (Mar 25, 2016)

red92s said:


> If they discontinued that product, it was probably for a good reason. They still sell the switches.


I did this exact project last year and it is easy. I can text you detail if you would like. It might be Monday before I can speak because I'm really busy.


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## Arrow3030 (Apr 19, 2015)

I'm definitely interested in how you did it. Why not just post it in this thread? If you don't want to you can PM me


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

Metalman....I have the same motion sensor mentioned above.

With the dusk feature enabled, the lights are on dim....then go to full bright when motion is detected.

To over ride, you turn them off then right back on. This is like a 'wake up' command.


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## BroMo (Mar 25, 2016)

Arrow3030 said:


> I'd use a single pole double throw center off switch and a single pole double throw relay with 120v control to avoid back feeding devices.


I have freely received and so I shall freely give...

First buy a motion light that has the dusk to dawn feature. Mine had the dusk to dawn dimming ability and when it detects motion it gets bright. You can either use incandescent bulbs or LED Bulbs. Now for the good part. The motion light has a white wire, black wire, and red wire.(The red wire goes from the motion sensor and has a wire nut on it.) The white and the black wire tie into the master switch. This turns power on or off. This switch can be any where you would like it to be. The trick is to run another wire to the motion light. With the wire, hook the white to the neutrals and the black to the red of the motion wire. Run that wire to where ever your switch leg is to the eave lights. The eave light switch will become a three way dimmable switch. On a three way switch, you have 3 screws and one is black. Hook the black screw to the switch leg of the eave lights and hook the wire coming from the motion light to another screw and house power to the other screw. This will allow either motion or switch to turn on light without allowing back feed. I did this with my front porch light and coach lights controled with motion sensor and 3 way light switch.


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## corneliani (Feb 8, 2017)

Hi, any luck/update on controlling your soffit lights as you desired? I'm looking for the same EXACT requirements, and am likewise surprised not to find something without utilizing relays and the sort. That heath zenith motion switch seemed like a great find, but the quality seemed to have ruined it for them. Anyhow, thought I'd reach out to see what you were able to conjure up. 
Thanks!


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## supers05 (May 23, 2015)

corneliani said:


> Hi, any luck/update on controlling your soffit lights as you desired? I'm looking for the same EXACT requirements, and am likewise surprised not to find something without utilizing relays and the sort. That heath zenith motion switch seemed like a great find, but the quality seemed to have ruined it for them. Anyhow, thought I'd reach out to see what you were able to conjure up.
> Thanks!


Use a zwave switch with a hub. If you want a motion sensor, you can get those too. 

If you want simple and cheap, go with wink, or one of its competitors. (internet driven hub) If you low latency and reliability (when you don't have internet) there are options too, but they aren't cheap or easy. Personally, I use wink. 

Cheers!


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