First one home automation help

Hi, still pretty new to this. Trying to set-up a ‘first one home’ automation but it doesn’t seem to work.

Does this look correct?

Not really no, as that will only run the Scenes at Sunset if someone is at home but the Location mode still says Away.

Assuming you appreciate that the Location mode is something you set yourself…

You do only want this Automation to run if the Location mode is currently Away. As you don’t really want the Automation to activate when the Location Mode changes to Away you would normally make it a precondition. However if you don’t actually set the Location Mode to Away until everyone has left it won’t do any harm if it does run.

You don’t want the ‘at home’ to be a precondition as that means things only happen if someone is already at home, you want that to be the event that makes things happen.

I’m guessing you only want things to happen after Sunset. You need to use a time period for that e.g. sunset to midnight. That also works like a precondition.

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Thanks for your help.

Location sets to ‘away’ when all phones are away from the house for 45mins +.
When one of us comes home the location mode sets to ‘home’ as most automations I’ve made have a precondition of ‘home’.

So I’m hoping this automation means that when it’s between that time and the location is ‘away’, when I come come then…
Or will the two location conditions clash?

I’m hoping this now reads more accurately…

There might perhaps be an issue if you have a separate Automation that sets the Location Mode to Home. If that runs first it is quite likely to stop this one working properly. Otherwise it looks OK.

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I am concerned there’s going to be a clash. I’ve heard people have set up first one home automations, how do they normally do it then? Based on connection to WiFi or something with IFTT integration?

Generally speaking people do just seem to do

If
  Location mode is away (precondition)
  Someone is at home
Then
  Set Location mode to Home
  Execute arrival scene(s)

Some like to set the Security Mode too, or flip the Location and Security Modes around.

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Thanks for all your help I’ll try it out. :+1: