Wasp-in-a-Box Sensor

The Wasp in a Box 🐝📦 feature improves presence detection by adding contextual logic to motion-based sensors using an associated door or entry sensor.

It’s based on a simple concept:

🚀 How It Works

1. If we see a wasp, there is a wasp in the box.
2. If we close the box while the wasp is inside, the wasp stays inside.
3. If the box remains closed and the wasp stops moving, we assume it's still inside.
4. If the box is opened again and the wasp isn’t moving, we assume it’s gone.

🧪 This helps avoid false clears due to motion sensors timing out after you’ve already left the room—preserving presence state more accurately.

When enabled, Magic Areas will:

• Create a binary_sensor for each area using this logic.
• Automatically use it for presence tracking (replacing or supplementing your regular motion sensors).
• Use the area’s aggregated wasp and box sensors (see below).

⏱️ Delay Behavior

Wasp in a Box forces the sensor off during a "box event" (i.e., door/garage opens or closes), and only checks for wasps after a configurable delay.

This ensures:

• When leaving a room (motion still on, door opens), we wait before checking motion again, in case the door is closed before the motion sensor clears. (e.g. bathrooms)
• When entering and closing the door, we must trigger motion again after the delay to confirm occupancy.

✅ This avoids premature clear and deadlock (motion sensor still on when you leave the room and close the door behind you) states and provides more reliable presence when entering or exiting enclosed rooms.

Warning

To tune the delay, trigger your motion sensor and immediately leave, see how long it takes to clear. Repeat this test multiple times and average out the results. Add a few seconds to be safe.

⏳ Wasp Timeout

Motion sensors might flicker when doors are closed, causing a false-positive deadlock. Setting a Wasp timeout will force the wasp out of the box after a period (configurable) of inactivity.

⚙️ Configuration Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
Delay	Integer	90	Time to wait before checking for wasps again (set to 0 to disable).
Wasp timeout	Integer	0 (disabled)	Wasp will be forgotten if not seen after this time (minutes).
Wasp sensor device classes	list(str)	motion,occupancy	Device classes of the aggregate sensors to track as wasps.

📦 Sensor Types Used

Wasp Sensors 🐝 (Configurable)

These indicate movement inside the area:

• motion (default)
• occupancy
• presence

You can configure which device classes to treat as wasps.

Box Sensors 📦 (Auto-detected)

These indicate entry/exit points (the "box"):

• door
• garage_door

These are automatically detected during setup — no configuration needed.

Failure

If you have doors you use for presence sensing that are not room access doors (e.g. cabinet doors, fridge doors), those will not work with Wasp in a Box. Exclude this doors from the area and create template sensors of device class presence based on their state, then add those template sensors to the area.

✅ Presence Integration

Once enabled, Magic Areas will:

• Automatically create a binary_sensor.magic_areas_wiab_$area
• Use it for presence tracking in that area

Tip

Use this feature for enclosed spaces like:

• Bathrooms 🚻
• Bedrooms 🚪
• Offices with doors 🧑‍💻
• Garages
• Laundry rooms ...

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For even more precise presence, pair Wasp in a Box with BLE Tracker Monitor and other presence sources.