Questions on Using Location Mode

SmartApps & Automations
1

Now that things are opening up, I’ve decided to start adding the location mode to better control my system when I’m away. I’ve got some basic questions, that I’m not sure are addressed in the other threads: 1) Can only one " location mode" be set at a time (e.g., I can’t use two to concurrently store daytime, at home, etc.? 2) There is not easy way to check the mode in ST app, unless you add a virtual light? 3) How do these work as preconditions? I’ve seen some comments that this is not reliable- is that still true? 4) If I have a good way to trigger this, is this more robust than the using
the smartphone trigger?

2
  1. Yes, there is only one location mode per location.

Some people create custom modes to cover more conditions, such as

Daytime Home
Daytime Away
Nighttime Home
Nighttime Away

Etc

That’s up to you for now.

As of this writing, you can add more location modes by going to the IDE at

https://account.smartthings.com , signing in, choosing “My Locations,’ and then selecting the location that you want to edit.

Here you can see that we have added “Guest” mode as an option to our account.

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3

@JDRoberts , great response- thank you for that! And I love your idea of separating DAY HOME from DAY AWAY… that’ll solve a bunch of issues I’m currently having.

Questions:

  1. When using a location mode as a PreCon, is it equivalent to “If locmode IS ___” or “If locmode CHANGES TO ___”?

  2. Do we know yet if ability to create/edit location modes will eventually be controllable via the app when they kill the IDE?

  3. I’m having a conceptual problems with PreCons. Why might one use a PreCon instead of just having multiple IF conditions, along with “When all conditions are met”?

Thanks

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4

I’ll have to let others speak to the specifics of preconditions, I don’t know the details.

As for what will happen with custom location.modes once the IDE goes away: great question, but I haven’t heard one way or the other. :thinking:

5

One thought: the current structure allows for

If A (precondition)

AND

any of B OR C OR D

which would be different than “all conditions are met” because of the Or’s for the secondary conditions.

So it’s a nested if. If A is true, then If B or C are true, then…

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If you’re going to instead use the “All conditions below are met” structure then using a precondition might still save you a little processing time by always checking the master condition first, but that one’s more theoretical.

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6

I’d considered this approach but thought it might get complex if I used this for other unrelated things (such as a glare flag). Thanks for the confirmation.

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7

It is rather click heavy, yes. When you click on the home icon on Android you get a list of locations with a nice big space under each which would be perfect for putting the current mode in. Unfortunately when they did put something there temporarily they chose the location owner …

  1. It is basically doing if locationMode is any of {{list of modes}} but the key things are that any change to a precondition doesn’t trigger the Routine into doing anything, and that the preconditions are evaluated separately so the Routine is basically if {{all preconditions evaluate to true}} AND {{conditions evaluate to true}} THEN ....
  2. The ability to rename the location modes is already there, so presumably the ability to add and delete them will be added eventually. No one seems to know why it isn’t there already or what it is about Location Modes that the app developers seem to hate so much that they bury it so deep.
  3. Arguably the key thing is that preconditions do not trigger the Routines. As an example, a typical arrival Routine might include if locationMode is Away so it only does anything the first time someone arrives in an empty house. But what happens if it changes to Away for some other reason? You don’t want that to trigger the Routine because ‘someone has arrived home’ is normally implemented as ‘is anybody present?’. Making it a precondition makes it simply a restriction on when the Routine can activate.
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8

I did see the option to select more than one though, meaning that multiple states could exist at the same time? Also unclear if these are Ands or Ors

9

Multiple states cannot exist at the same time, but you can create a rule that would be true for any of several states.

As far as ands/ors it depends on the settings of the rule.

Two choices for the IF part of the routine:

A) “ when all conditions below are met“ (AND)

B) “ when any condition below is met“ (OR)

You select A or B by tapping on it when you are creating the routine.

10

I’m referring to just the location mode only. If I select multiple options at that point do they all need to be true (seems like that would not be possible if only one allowed) or just one of them?

11

I believe location modes are OR

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12

but to confirm, if you have multiple sets of logic setting them, then on the latest one will appear? Is that correct?