I am looking at various automated lighting options for bathrooms and wanted to know of any downsides. It looks like the newer PIR sensors are the way to go over motion sensors but wanted to others thoughts. Also, does anyone know about their fail rates? I would like to design some into a few projects we have coming up. thanks!
The biggest drawback to automated bathroom lighting is motion detection by the switch/sensor while in the bathroom, you may end up in the dark. Additionally, if the bathroom is located in a way to let lighting into the bedroom sleeping area, you may wake your partner when using the bathroom at night. I typically stay away from motion activated lighting in this location except for indirect, low illumination lighting for access at night. An example of this would be rope lighting or similar lighting installed in the vanity kickspace/toekick or lighting installed under/around a glass bowl sink inside the vanity itself which illuminates the sink bowl.