Best way to do a one time mode change at a predetermined time

(Brian) #1

Will be on vacation. Will need to have house switch modes when I’m on a plane in order to cool down house and start some other things.

Tried:

  1. IFTTT: Smartthings channel doesn’t allow mode change.
  2. Simplerulebuilder: Doesn’t have a date, only a time. I could possibly set this up in the morning of the return, I’ll have to remember to shut it off though. Somewhat hacky.
  3. I could temporarily let my sunrise mode change act during vacation, similar to 2., but I’d have to remember to switch back. Also a hack.
  4. Create a smartapp. I’m ready to do this, but hoping there was already a one time mode change app. I’m not finding one right now. Anyone have one, or a different suggestion?
(Keith Croshaw) #2

IFTTT can toggle switches, so I would create a virtual switch and now there is an official app to change mode based on a switch status! Also SimpleRuleBuilder can do that too :wink:

I had automation woes when I was away this summer too which made me realize how un-automated this all is…

(Brian) #3

Argh, I hate when creating a post, the words occur to me to search for after I spent a bunch of time looking.

I think this post, some code in middle will work: One time Mode change

I still wish the other methods would work… :smile:

#4

I change my mode to home every morning at 7:59 AM using a plain hello home action. Is that what you’re looking for?

image.jpg768x1024 72.1 KB

It’s hard to get simpler than that.

#5

If you only want it to happen one time, you just set it up the night before. If you normally use a special mode while you’re away, like vacation, you can set it up to only fire in that mode, and you’ll be fine.

If you don’t use a special “vacation mode” then, yes, you have to remember to take it out again before the morning after you get back.

Also as Keith already mentioned, you can have IFTTT toggle a virtual switch which then changes the mode.

(William) #6

You could set up a “hello, home” action to fire on a certain day of the week or time, and you can set it to only fire when the house is in “vacation” mode.

(Brian) #7

Aha, this is probably the closest without code. Because it won’t fire after I’m out of vacation mode (I do use a special mode for this which works awesome).

It still has the downfall of having to be setup the night before, but it could work.

I still wish/believe we all would be served by:

  1. IFTTT channel allowed mode change (what is the best way to request
    that enhancement?)
  2. Simplerulebuilder to incorporate date/time triggers (community supplied, so I’m not demanding, just suggesting… )
  3. A native SmartApp for one time use for any trigger (probably the most logical and native request).

I will be trying the code for fun I think, I have a little time.

thanks!

Note: The code in the post I put above is really sparse, it almost doesn’t help at all. I need to do mode change on a date/time, not switch off after so many minutes. Looks like I’ll be banging around on the keyboard.

#8

IFTTT allows a mode change, you just use a virtual switch to activate it. :sunglasses:. Lots of us use it. So the IFTTT recipe looks like you’re just turning on the switch at the specified time, but the smartapp recognizes that that switch came on and does the mode change.

See numbers 31 and 32 under convenience in the more section of smart set up:

(Brian) #9

I hope this post helps others, this was really easy in Smartthings. In the end, restricting the firing of the action to a day of the week and time and while only in “Vacation” mode makes me comfortable that it won’t run again by the time I remember to deactivate it. I don’t get that many vacations. :smile:

(Kevin Tierney) #10

In the past, when I wanted to set up a schedule for things to happen while on vacation, I’ve used a Google Calendar -> IFTTT -> ST combination.You could use that for a one time trigger as well

The specific trigger is “Event from Search Starts” under google calendar. I’ll create rules using keywords such as #LightsOn and #LightsOff

In my case, since I haven’t used the IFTTT Google Calendar integration for anything else, I use a dedicated IFTTT calendar for these sorts of things

As others have said, I use virtual switches to trigger the HH Actions