In Smartlighting, one of the options is “when someone arrives”.
Can you achieve the same in Automations?
I m using mobiles as the ( now hidden!) location device.
Thanks
Yes you can use a presence sensor in Automations and set it to when someone is at home.
Thanks…but I don’t think that works if also with a time?
The light would come in at ,say, sunset if someone is at home…not when someone arrives home after sunset ,which us a different event?
I don’t think I ever tested that. I see the options are Someone arrives and Everybody leaves.
Everybody leaves is usually straight forward as it means that one of the selected presence sensor has changed state and they are now all set to not present.
Someone arrives is a little more ambiguous. It can often mean that a presence sensor has changed state and at least one is now present, which means it would happen every time someone arrives, and indeed even when somebody leaves but there is still someone left behind. I don’t know if that is how Smart Lighting does it or if it actually checks for a change to present and/or interprets ‘someone’ as ‘the first person’.
Yes you can.
You use the Member Location condition to access mobile presence and you deal more closely with the actual status. Present equates to At {{Location}} and not present is Away from {{Location}}.
If you are working with multiple presence sensors you have to bear in mind that the Automation will be triggered whenever any of them change state. If you are testing if any member is At {{Location}}, that will be true every time someone arrives or departs as long as someone is still present. So if you only want to do something the first time someone arrives in an empty house you have to deal with that yourself. It is possible you already have to do all that with Smart Lighting.
The equivalent of Smart Lighting’s More choices is setting a condition to be a Precondition.
Anyone arrives is fine as I would want the light on as an aid whenever anyone arrives ,after sunset ,for example.
So, if I understand, it is the change of state that triggers…so as long as any presence sensor leaves( and so changes state for the first time), when they then arrive back ( change of state second time), the second change of state causes the trigger (lights on).
Can I ask,if you know, with all the changes taking place, is there any reason to think Smartlighting will not at some time inthe future be removed? I have been moving some of my Smartlightings to Automations…but perhaps I don’t need to?
Smart Lighting is a Groovy SmartApp that runs on the legacy platform which is going to be turned off. We don’t know exactly when and it wouldn’t be surprise if timescales have slipped. It has to happen though as the hamster has arthritis.
So Smart Lighting as it is currently implemented is for the chop.
I can see three options:
- Reimplement Smart Lighting as a bespoke app for the current platform.
- Reimplement Smart Lighting on top of the Rules API (similar to how Automations and Scenes work).
- Totally scrap Smart Lighting in favour of Automations, which might require multiple Automations for each Smart Lighting automation.
In each case there could possibly be a migration path.
I have absolutely no insight into what is planned. Personally I’d do 3) and release the existing code to help anyone who likes 1) better.
I have already removed all my Smart Lighting automations, and indeed all my webCoRE pistons too. I favour using the Rules API directly.
It really would be helpful to know what is planned. I’d prefer not to see a repeat of the mobile app migration where those who migrated early discovered that if they’d waited there would have been a migration tool that hadn’t even been hinted at, and then those that went to the wire were rewarded with their SHM custom rules being migrated too.
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Ok…thanks for the thoughts!
Actually,I have just seem in Labs there is an arrive home function…but without a time setting option…which seems a bit silly…