Optically transparent covering?

What are your objectives, for this overly scientific sensor ?

I have a sensor which mounts on the carriage lamp out front of the house. It costs about as much as a light switch at the hardware store.

Photocell sensor. Mine is brick-shaped, with the CdS sensor mounted on the side of it.

It's suitable for parking lot, street lighting, outdoor lighting, factory, indoor lighting"

(Example of a CdS sensor as a component...

The thing has at least three wires, and there's probably a Triac in there doing the appliance switching.

And their claim in that description is accurate. I've never seen a false trigger on the thing. A car can drive by, the light stays on. It's not a motion sensor. The light it controls, is not some kind of strobe show, like all the neighbours lights. Mine failed at some point, I bought a new one and fitted the sensor to the pipe-with-a-hole it mounts inside. And it's been running for probably 20 years at this point.

Now, the Triac part is no good for your purposes. But as far as the sensor function is concerned, it accurately detects dusk. The light will come on whenever there is a "complete solar eclipse". Any condition which is sufficiently dark and sustained long enough, will switch it on. And I don't go out and "clean the sensor face" - there is no maintenance whatsoever.

It was cheap, and surprisingly fit for purpose (shocker!). At the price, I was expecting Magic Smoke or Quibbles.

Paul

I don't have one specifically Paul, it's just another opportunity to try another sensor, see how it integrates into Home Assistant and from there, see how I can make use of it. One thought of a use was to 'enhance' the electric curtains so rather than just dusk / dawn (+- whatever offset I set) I could use those + actual light levels, as some days 'sunset;' is still reasonably light whereas others it's quite dark'. Apparent you can also use sun angle that takes into account your height above sea level but I've not tried that yet).

I'm not sure if it's 'overly scientific', just that it offered 'predictable support / integration into ESPHome / Home Assistant (all the support libraries in place), cheap, connects via I2C (so simple to interface) and 'calibrated', as opposed to using a LDR etc.

This probably cost less (inc the ESP32 board that gives wireless access). ;-)

Noted.

I didn't really want to 'switch' anything, especially as some preset level (if not adjustable etc), I wanted to dynamically 'read' the light levels and then I can decide how I want to make use of that. This was based from previous experiences with 'light sensing' lamps and lamp fitting adaptors that have no user adjustable sensitivity settings.

Yeah, commercial photo-switches seem to be a strange thing, either lasting for ever or a very short time.

This was more of an electronics, wireless, Home Automation, datalogging, 'you can manage what you can measure' sort of project, rather than a straight light level switching task.

For example, if I wanted I could set all the lights in the house to come on during a solar eclipse. ;-)

From my experience of them they normally just die unspectacularly. ;-(

Previously I had the sensor looking direct out and up (towards the sky / sun) and logged this:

Cheers, T i m