Blinking light when door is unlocked, while in Away mode

[JDRoberts]

@royalj7

Hey JD,

Trying to understand how you would do what you’re saying. I understand virtual switches, I have one controlling all the Hue lights as a group. However, I don’t see how having one turn on when the Away mode is set will help. In my mind the statement is: IF virtual switch is ON, AND door is UNLOCKED, THEN blink light. Not sure how to get that AND in the IFTTT applet.

My bad, I missed that this was a “do while” condition. Sorry, it was a tough day yesterday.

If you have an iOS device, and you are willing to pay a one time $10 license fee, there’s a nice third party app called SmartRules where you could set up “if Mode changes to away while the door is unlocked, turn on the virtual switch” and then have an IFTTT applet " if virtual switch turns on, activate Hue blink scene". No coding required, and it’s nice graphical interface. But there’s no android version. You can try one rule for free so if you do have an iOS device you can see if it works for you.

http://smartrulesapp.com

Other than that though, core or web core are going to be your best options. I know they seem really complicated to set up, but there are lots of community members will be glad to help you. They’ll even typically show you just what your rule (which core calls a “piston”) Should look like and then you just have to match it in your room set up. And of course Core is free.

FAQ: What is WebCoRE? (And what was CoRE?)

CoRE (now WebCore) is a very powerful community – created rules engine for SmartThings. It allows you to set up stacked conditionals like “If A then B but only while C and not if D.” Setting it up can be quite complex, but there are many community members who will be glad to help you. For example, here is a piston that one member created to notify him if the dog had already been fed twice that day and he picked up the dog bowl for a third time. He needed this because he has a large family and people didn’t always remember whose turn it was to feed the dog. [image] The original version of CoRE Has now been replaced by a new version, WebCoRE, which moves the data entry to a web interface. This allows for flexibility and an architecture that requires more memory than is av…

Quite a few people use both – – core for anything really complicated, but smart rules is a fast and easy way to set up “If This, then that, but only while…” rules.

Again, my apologies for missing the “while” condition. The method I suggested would work for “if I’m away and the door unlocks, Then turn on the virtual switch.” So it would notice if someone unlocked the door after the mold was away. But I realize now that’s not what you were asking for, you were asking for “if the door is already unlocked when the mode changes to away” which is a “do while” condition and isn’t something that the standard features can handle.

So again, core is definitely the way most people would handle that. But if you do happen to have an iOS device, you can try the smart rules app for free for one rule and see if you like it. I personally have found it well worth the $10 license fee, but there’s no question core is much more powerful. So I do recommend both for many people.