I don’t think this exists at all yet…please correct me if I’m wrong.
We need the ability to change things when we exit a mode / hello action. Simple example - if I have a light on in one mode and it is not part of the other, I would like the option to turn it off when transitioning. Now I have to do it manually.
Better example - Party mode, which is both a mode and a hello home action mode…ugh. We have a party mode that sets lights to specific levels and starts playing music. When exiting party mode and going to goodnight or I’m gone, there is no ability to turn off the music.
Also, as you can see by the way I have phrased this, we really need to either combine modes and hello home modes or differentiate them better through naming.
I think it’s more that you may not know what switches to turn off, as you don’t know what mode you will be changing FROM. I would rather have the ability to say any switches that aren’t explicitly on in the new mode should be off. Rather than having to go in and specify to turn off all those switches when starting each mode, even if they may not already be on.
@tduffy - yep, that’s definitely one option. However, it might affect a lot of devices (such as switches throughout the house). I think another option might be to change the state of things that were activated when the mode began.
Let’s put a scenario together here so I can better explain what I’m thinking:
Enter Party Mode
Turn on switch 1
Turn on switch 3
Turn on switch 4
Play music (I’m using HAM Bridge in this case, not Sonos, but either would work for the discussion here)
I then select Home mode.
Home Mode…
Is switch 1 (which was activated in Party Mode) supposed to be on in Home mode? Yes, dim to setting
Switch 3? No, turn off
Switch 4? Yes, dim to setting
Turn on Switch 2
Is music supposed to be on from Party Mode? No, execute command to turn it off
Basically, I’m asking for logic checks to be added to mode changes. It is fairly straightforward, but I bet there are some potential pitfalls and I haven’t exactly envisioned the interface to this yet.
Also, we would need much more verbose logging and possibly my simulation mode I asked for in a previous feature request…
Sort of, but it has to be intelligent to turn off things that were turned on in the original scene but not in the new scene…of course, swap scene for mode in these discussions.
I think you’re over-complicating it, but again maybe I’m just missing something. In a traditional HA sense, “scenes” are just macros that perform multiple actions. They can be activated, but they cannot be “turned off”. Instead, you activate another scene. So every scene has to define explicitly what switches need to be turned on and off (or set to a specific dim level). If a switch is not defined in a scene, it will not be affected be a scene change.
This type of simple logic has been a staple feature of all HA systems since X10. I don’t know why SmartThings have been trying to ignore it for such a long time. They introduced Hello Home “actions” in the mobile app, which are sort of like a scene, but they’re afraid to call them “scenes” for whatever reason. I’d like to hear @ben’s comments on this.
I have an impression, based on a lot of user comments, that Hello Home actions and “modes” are very confusing to majority of ST users. ST have many innovative ideas, but I think in this particular case they’d be better served by sticking to the basics. Just my opinion, of course.
Maybe you can already do this but can you add a garage button so we can control and see if it is open or closed. like on the door/lock page of the smart things app. Thanks
