Now we can stepped into the light with our favorite microcontroller ... Commonly available TSL2561 Sensor Module (TSL2561 breakout board) provides an I2C interface, so all we need is to connect it to ...

As found in the schematic of the ... comfortably see ambient light through the Fresnel lens. To be frank, using a microcontroller is probably overkill for most motion detector safety light circuits ...

Most ambient lights and sensors are designed to generate light to even out the picture ... He even provides the wiring diagram for his controller and the config file for his lights.