I have an ST button that when “held” was set to turn on or turn off two smart bulbs, with a delay of 1 minute between them. I just added backlighting to my tv and want to have that also turn on or off before the delay. I couldn’t see a way to add an action in the middle of a routine, so figured I would just delete the delay and the second bulb, then add the backlighting and recreate the other two steps. Unfortunately, the delay has been created with a “wait” command, which I now don’t see anywhere. No problem, I’ll just use “delay this action” but when turn on or turn off is selected, that option is greyed out.
So I guess I have 2 questions… What happened to actions like “wait”? and why is “delay” not available in this situation?
No, 3 questions! How can I accomplish this simply using only the SmartThings app?
I have no recollection of ‘wait’ in Routines, but I guess it could have been replaced in favour of the delayed actions if they switched from series to parallel execution of the actions at some point.
I can’t think of a convincing reason why ‘Turn on or turn off’ doesn’t allow for a delay.
‘Turn on or turn off’ uses a toggle action in the underlying rule that Routines have access to but the public Rules API don’t. Those of use using the latter have to test the current state of switches and use on or off accordingly. Routines don’t have the same flexibility but if you are always either turning on all the lights or turning off all the lights you would be able to use the current state of one of the lights as a precondition and use two Routines instead of one.