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Motion Sensors Are Outdated. Presence Sensors Are the One Smart Home Upgrade Actually Worth Buying

Photo by Tim Witzdam on Pexels The lights-turning-off problem nobody talks about If you've ever sat still at your desk long enough for the lights to shut off on you, you already know why motion sensors are a flawed idea. They don't detect you being in a room. They detect you moving in a room. Sit still to read, work through a spreadsheet, or watch a movie, and eventually the sensor decides you've left and cuts the lights. I've written before about Matter and what it did and didn't fix in the smart home. Presence sensing is a separate story, and it's honestly a bigger quality-of-life upgrade than most of the flashier stuff that gets marketed at you. It's also one of the rare smart home purchases where I'd tell you flat out: yes, buy this one. What a presence sensor actually does differently Motion sensors use passive infrared, or PIR — the same tech in most cheap security lights. PIR looks for a change in infrared heat crossing its field of v...