Controlling Lights with sensors (the Basic way)

So after some experimentation, I realised (probably one of those Read The F... Manual times...;-) ) that using scenes with blocks was not the most basic way of setting up and controlling my lighting!  Understanding the basic ideas behind association is one thing, but realising some of the control that can be had with some of the other settings/parameters is important.

So the basic idea, to control the lights in my hall, bringing them on when the motion sensor was breached but only when actually needed.

Basic Association
For starters, I associated the sensor to the lights (both Fibaro sensors in this case...will try with others when I get some!).  In the advanced Tab of the sensor, in the Associations section, I used Group ID 1 (in image below click the Set Up) and chose the Hall lights from the list.  One thing confused me here...the number that appears does not seem to be the device ID!? (does anyone know? Please tell in comments if you do)

With this done the sensor needs the configuration to be added to the actual sensor as it's a battery device, which after some experimentation this needs to be done TWICE! So remove the sensor and bring it close to the HC2, open the case and triple click the button...and once this is done (and the blue light goes out on the sensor and the flicking one on the HC2), do it again.  Do yourself a favour and have the web interface open as there is a prompt after the first wake up in the logging window that actually says to wake the device again (in yellow text).  To check that this is correct, when refreshing the parameters (on Advanced Tab > Reload parameters) the "View" section will only show 1 (or any previous associations) until the second wakeup is performed. I got this wrong and wondered why things didn't work.

When to switch on the lights
There are 3 parameters that are important as you don't necessarily (well I didn't) want the lights to come on during the day.  Going back to front....first there is Parameter 9, which controls the light intensity.  This is set to 200 Lux by default which I found far to high for my Hall (and my eyes!)  This will need some experimentation to understand at what level of natural light you need to have the lights on for and is related to the activities of that space.

Then onto Parameter 8 which controls when the light will come on...and this is not time of day like it suggests.  From what I can gather, when the light drops below the default 200 lux (or whatever you have determined to be that level as part of parameter 9 above...in my case 50 lux) it determines that as it's "night".  This one I am going to experiment with a little more to see if my assumptions are actually correct. (again, comments if you think I am wrong please!)

Then the last parameter, in descending numerical order...(although I have no idea where 7 went to) we get to Parameter 6.  This basically tells you how long the light will stay on for if there are no other sensor breaches...in my case this is 180 seconds (3 minutes).  This is a sliding window of time as if there is a breach within that time the windows resets itself.

And that's it...now if the lux level is below the 50 lux and the sensor is breached, we have lights for 3 minutes (unless someone moves!).  The other great thing, if the controller is off / rebooting etc. this will continue to work as associations are between the devices.

On a side note...I really do love these highly descriptive and logical "Parameter x" values.  I'm sure they could have been named something a little more descriptive and understandable, like "Light Intensity" or "Time that Light stays on"!