[OBSOLETE] Home Alone (lighting director)

Hi everyone,

I was using the excellent Vacation Lighting Director, but wanted a bit more control over my lights while I was away, so I’ve created Home Alone:

Instead of having lights turn on and off randomly during specific times, I wanted to be able to “simulate” someone moving through the house in the evening. For example, lights turning on/off in the TV room in the evening, then turning that off while the upstairs bedroom and bathroom lights turn on.

Features:

  • You can control up to 4 sets of lights
  • For each set, you can give the on/off times
  • Each day, the on/off times will be randomized by whatever +/- minutes you specify

Simple app, but hope it helps someone else!

6 Likes

@nicjansma, I’m getting an error trying to checkout home-alone from your github. I can checkout your other two (iot-logger and garage-door-sunset-monitor) in your smartapps repository, but not home-alone :confused:

Hm, what kind of error do you get?

I get:

 "Updated 0 and created 0 SmartApps, 0 published (1 skipped due to errors) "

after I select home-alone, Publish, Execute Update. Not a very informative error message, but that’s all there is. I suppose I can resort to copy-and-paste, but I’m too lazy :smile:

Hello,
I am a noob and cannot figure out how to get home alone into my world. Can you LMK how to do this please?
Thank you
Danny

Hi @danno6,

This should help you out getting this SmartApp going:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Using_Custom_Code

Installed, looks good.

I needed to select lights for each group, even if I only wanted one.

Would it be possible to add an extra layer to the time, so that it runs after Sunset / before Sunrise?
i.e. Run at 8pm but only if after Sunset (+/- random time), or Run at 5am but switch off after Sunrise?

Oh, forgot to mention this also works with Harmony actions, so I can have the TV turn on too. Awesome. Now I just need a way to make it auto-start Angels with filthy souls!

1 Like

Hi @Andrew_Taylor: Those are good ideas, and should be pretty easy to add. Do you have any experience programming in Groovy / Java?

Hi nicjansma, I just installed this app but it doesn’t seem to work. I believe I have it setup correctly, though this is my first time installing custom smartapps. Please advise.

@rockytong Can you give a little more details about what’s not working?

Hi @nicjansma

I know it’s been a long time, and you might no longer be active here, but worth a try…

Just installed Home Alone as it seems to offer the control of lighting I require (multiple switching within one routine).

However, despite trying a number of times, the SmartApp does not retain the Mode I select. If I go back into it after saving, the Mode fields show empty.

Also, I don’t understand why there are 2 different fields for entering Mode into; what is the significance of the two?

Thanks

Dave

I am using the new ST app with Home Alone and after I enter all the info, I am not given the option of Done, only Cancel.

Any ideas?