Feature Request : Ability to turn automation rules on/off

[intensert (Steve)]

Would like to see the ability to turn automation rules (routines, smartapps) on or off. I sometimes want to disable automated tasks such as holiday lights that go unneeded for months at time. The only way to accomplish this is to delete the automation and re-created it when I need it again. The ability turn these on or off would be great.

[Core_Phx (Bill S.)]

You could just remove the trigger from the routine as well. That is typically what I do. Smart Lighting would require a code change though.

[Automated_House (Jimmy)]

If the new SmartThings app is a re-branded Samsung Connect app, then you’ll get it when that transition happends

Specifically regarding holiday lights, what I do is have my sunset outside lights SmartThings rule turn on a scene. During holidays that scene is the scene specific to the holiday. During “regular days”, that scene is my normal outside lights scene. So after holiday i just change the scene that gets triggered by my Smart Lighting rule.

[JDRoberts]

@intensert

Would like to see the ability to turn automation rules (routines, smartapps) on or off. I sometimes want to disable automated tasks such as holiday lights that go unneeded for months at time. The only way to accomplish this is to delete the automation and re-created it when I need it again. The ability turn these on or off would be great.

There are a couple of ways to do this now, but they all feel like more work than they should be. As @Automated_House mentioned, there’s going to be a major redesign of the app this year, which may just bring what you want. So you might want to just wait and see.

If you really want this now, the two most common ways of doing it either with modes (huge set up work, but then the automation will run locally) Or with webcore ( but then it won’t run locally).

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…

If you want to do it with modes, you basically have to create multiple sets of modes to handle every Calendar condition you may want.

So you would have

Home

Home holidays

Away

Away holidays

Etc.

Then you set up your holiday automations To only run during the holiday modes. And you set up some routine that will change from one mode to the other.

The mode method works, and it’s what we used to do before webcore existed, it’s just a lot of work To go back through all your automations and make sure each one is set up for the correct combination of modes.

Also, we used to be able to add new modes through the mobile app, but now you can only do it through the IDE.

So the mode method does work, And it has the advantage of only having to change one setting and being able to affect dozens of automations if you want. But it’s easy to miss a mode When you were setting up a new automation and then have automations running when you didn’t want them to.

So the capability exists now, it’s just more work than it should be. And the capability may well be coming with the new revision of the mobile app, we will just have to wait and see.

SmartThings app will receive a major overhaul in Q1 2018

[cdallum (Carson Dallum)]

I would echo @JDRoberts option of using webCoRE. In addition to using modes, it has a number of other ways, such as selecting only certain months of the year, to execute rules (also known as pistons with webCoRE). I continue to find numerous ways to tweak my home automation and make it more user-friendly and less intrusive while reducing maintenance time on my part.

[Automated_House (Jimmy)]

FWIW, here’s how it works in Connect

[JeremyW (Jeremy)]

I have some rules that turn everything off when me and my wife leave. When we have a baby sitter or family is in town, I have to delete triggers to prevent all the lights going off when we leave. I recently got a separate presence sensor to help with this but it would be nice for a quick “turn off” feature light Jimmy posted above.

[Automated_House (Jimmy)]

For this situation, I use a virtual presence sensor. Flip it on when a sitter or guest is at the house and then add it to the goodbye routine so it doesn’t trigger when its present.

[JeremyW (Jeremy)]

THanks Jimmy. I guess i need to look into creating virtual devices. I’ve seen it talked about multiple times, but never really looked at it.

[Automated_House (Jimmy)]

FAQ: Creating a virtual Groovy Device [OBSOLETE]

Need a FAQ for the simplest version of this: a virtual on/off switch. Maybe even two FAQs, one for why you would want one with use case examples and one step by step how to for creating one in ST. Thanks! 2023 Update Since groovy will be going away soon, so will groovy virtual switches. See the new FAQ for on the replacements: FAQ: Creating Virtual Devices Without the IDE

Simulated Presence is the type you want

[WB70]

@Automated_House

For this situation, I use a virtual presence sensor. Flip it on when a sitter or guest is at the house and then add it to the goodbye routine so it doesn’t trigger when its present.

Why so much manual intervention?

1. Flipping the virtual switch
2. Manually updating Goodbye Routine

Why not have the Virtual switch modify the Mode to Guest or Sitter and then your Goodbye Routine doesn’t fire on either of those 2 modes?

Or is what I stated above what you did? The wording of your post didn’t say that, so that’s why I was asking.

[Automated_House (Jimmy)]

Technically only flipping the virtual sensor is manual. It stays assigned to the goodbye routine once setup. And in reality mine is more complicated didn’t want to overwhelm. I want the house to behave the same, so no need for a new mode.

In real life, when our sitter connects to our wifi (google onhub/wifi) it automatically turns the presence device in SmartThings via IFTTT. So no manual intervention.

[WB70]

@Automated_House

didn’t want to overwhelm

No worries. The wording suggested that after flipping the switch, you were then adding that to the Routine, versus already having your Routine predefined so that when the switch was changed to Present, that Routine won’t fire in the future. Just trying to minimize the other person’s confusion. Thanks for clarification.

[kes601]

I created a mode in the IDE called “Hold”. When I want an automation to not run I just tell it to only run when the mode is “Hold”, which it never is.

[ogman]

It’s really disappointing to see that this is not as easy to do as it is in Wink. There, you simply turn the automations on and off as needed. Seems like SmartThings should have had this feature long ago.

[JDRoberts]

@ogman

It’s really disappointing to see that this is not as easy to do as it is in Wink. There, you simply turn the automations on and off as needed. Seems like SmartThings should have had this feature long ago.

It’s coming in the new version of the mobile app. Don’t migrate until they tell you to, though, as not all features have been transferred yet.

"SmartThings Classic" vs "SmartThings (Samsung Connect)"

What’s the difference? What’s the expected rollout to existing users?