Multiple motion sensor lights on one switch

Question

I have a switch inside my house which feeds power to two fixtures on opposite corners outside. I installed LED motion sensor fixtures which have their own sensors and lights but they have never worked properly. They have the feature where if you turn them off and on with X seconds they should remain on but this never works. Looking at the troubleshooting in the manual it actually says that multiple fixtures can't be on the same circuit. Why is this and how can I work around this problem? Are there fixtures available that support this arrangement? Rewiring the circuit isn't really an option as the switch is on the bottom floor and the fixtures are at the roofline.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

Answer 1

Unfortunately many or even most of the motion sensor lights on the market are junk. At least that's been my experience. I have installed a bunch of these purchased at big box stores that just didn't work, replaced them with better quality brands and had no trouble.

Before I went to too much trouble with these, I'd remove them and bench test them - wire them up (carefully of course) on a test bench and see if they work as they are supposed to one at a time. If they don't, you can return them and get something better without wasting a lot of time.

If they work individually, I'd further bench test that they DON'T work with both on the same circuit. I am skeptical that that's really an issue. If it is, it's probably more trouble to rearrange your wiring on separate circuits than it is to just replace them with better lights that don't have that restriction.

In fact it probably boils down to replacing them either way so maybe it doesn't even make sense to test, just find a high quality brand that works when installed on the same circuit and replace them.