Ive been using smartrules for a couple months now with no issues, and then all of a sudden most of my rules disappeared. I remade most of them, and then again last night over half of them are gone again…is that part of my issue?
@DeLuce, there was a problem with our update, v1.4, that caused a bunch of people to lose rules. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. We have found and fixed the problem and also added the ability to export your rules (and later import) so that you can have a backup and prevent losing all your work again. This update is ready and approved by Apple, but we’re just waiting on SmartThings to approve the SmartApp. Hopefully it won’t be long. In the meantime, after the migration, everything should work correctly to recreate your rules. Again, sorry for the trouble.
I’ve been struggling with the app and the rules not running for weeks now. They ran flawlessly but not they are sporadic. I don’t know if anyone else is having the same issue but I have tried to logout and log back in then go into each rule and save them. I even deleted some of them and recreated them and it still no luck. I’m about to dump this program and try something else.
@Jonathan_Bond
Oh, don’t blame SmartRules, ST is having all sorts of timing and scheduling issues. I have 40 or so rules and some work and some do not but I also have smartapps that work and smartapps that don’t. Keep in mind SmartRules is just a smartapp on the back end. I think ST is the one to blame for most if not all your issues.
Yes, if your rules are working intermittently, it is most likely a SmartThings issue. If a rule has never worked, then it could be a SmartRules issue, but if they used to run fine and now stopped, it’s probably a problem on the backend.
As Sean mentioned, there have been a lot of problems with scheduled events in the ST infrastructure. We’re considering adding a secondary scheduling mechanism if this continues to be a problem. The solution is designed, but we haven’t decided yet whether it is worth our effort, since SmartThings is undoubtedly working to fix the problem on their end.
1 Like
I deleted some of my rules from the app and duplicated them in Rule Machine and I’m not having the same issue. They have worked fine for a few days. I continue to keep a mixture to see how the reliability is between the two systems.
1 Like
So…started using SmartRules again given the various issues affecting Rule Machine. Since doing so, I have lights that will randomly turn on even though the rules governing their operation are limited to physically operating a switch.
Ex. If Switch A is turned on, Turn on Switch B
Any ideas why this might be happening…?
I haven’t heard of any issues like this. Are you sure its SmartRules that is turning it on? When you go to the device in the SmartThings app and tap the “Recently” tab, you would see SmartRules in the list just before or after the light turning on.
If so, is it possible that this was a delayed event from a previous time the switch was flipped? Sometimes if SmartThings is wonky when the rule is triggered, it might not take the action until later than expected.
We’re working on getting more info into that listing, so you’d be able to see which rule triggered it, but that is not there yet.
Yes, this is definitely SmartRules…several entries in the recent log history indicate the same. Furthermore, the lights didn’t behave this way prior to creating rules for them in SmartRules.
It’s doubtful that this is a delayed action issue, imo, as these particular lights are rarely used.
Hi @obycode are there any plans for the following in future Smart Rules?
Routine/Hello Home Phrase running as a trigger
Text to Speech to make custom announcements on Music players
Set color of lights as well as dim level
Not needing a trigger at all in the same way that a ‘Rule’ can be set up in Rule Machine?
Thanks
@pm4_1613 Do you see “SmartRules” in the “Recently” for the “Cabiney (Low) Light” device as well? If you can leave live logging running and catch something in the logs when this happens, that could be very helpful. If you find anything in the logs, please send it to us at support@smartrulesapp.com, along with an export of your rules and we’ll figure this out.
Hi @Tino_Race. Good questions.
Yes, this is definitely coming. When we first added support for Hello, Home Phrases, there was no way to subscribe to them, so we couldn’t add them as a trigger. Now, that is supported, so we just need to add that functionality.
This is already available as long as your music player supports the “Speech Synthesis” capability. You’ll need to select it under this category during installation or in the SmartApp settings. For some reason, the Sonos device type does not include this functionality, despite the fact that it has a method for speaking text. We’ve got a version that we forked from the old ST version on our GitHub here that adds this capability.
Definitely. This is at the top of the list for v2.1.
I don’t understand this. What good would it do if it has no trigger? I have avoided trying Rule Machine to make sure we don’t inadvertently steal ideas from that SmartApp. Can you explain why you would want that? Thanks.
This is a great app and being the only way to backup and restore in ST means I’m going to try and use it for everything where possible. Great news on routines and colors.
Yes the speaker is Sonos, thanks for the code I’ll give it a try
For the final question here’s an example:
I have a heater which I want to turn on if its evening AND temp < 20oC
If it gets to evening while temp < 20 then it turns on
If temp drops below 20 while evening it turns on
If the temp > 20 or Mode is not evening then turn it off
In Smart rules this requires three rules
In Rule Machine this can be achieved with one Rule. The rule subscribes to changes in mode and temp and when ever either of these changes it reevaluates the true/false status of the combined rule. Then you can have an action for TRUE or an action for FALSE or both. The user input basically skips the need to enter and trigger and just has the while bit with ANDs or ORs. I don’t know what it does in the background after this input to make it work
The rule looks like this:
TRIGGERS: None needed as user input
WHILE: mode is evening AND temp < 20
ACTION IF TRUE: Heater on
ACTION IF FALSE: Heater off
Not a biggie, but it would help reduce the number of rules needed to achieve this kind of automation
Ok, so really both mode and temp are triggering the rule in this case. In SmartRules, the rule is only triggered by the fields in the triggers section. Conditions are only checked once the rule has triggered. You could create the rule you want by using both triggers and conditions:
if any of these happen:
evening is activated
temp goes below 20
while ALL of these are true:
evening is active
temp is below 20
then do this:
turn on heater
We don’t have the option to add an action if false, so you would need another rule to turn it off. I guess you would want some different trigger for that anyway, like temp goes above 22?
ok so does the while get evaluated on the state before or after the trigger?
If its evaluated from the states before the trigger then:
It becomes Evening WHILE it was day and Temp <20
Then this rule wouldn’t work
It its evaluated after the trigger then:
It becomes Evening, then we check the mode and see its now Evening and the Temp is less than 20 so the While part is true
The rule works
I assumed it was the former.
It is evaluated after the trigger. Just remember that nothing happens until the trigger causes the rule to fire, then the conditions are checked and if they evaluate true, the actions are run.
Edit… I see you addressed this… comment removed…
I guess its confusing because the term “trigger” must have meant something different in Rule Machine. In SmartRules, it really is a trigger. The rule is completely inactive until a trigger causes it to fire. Only then are the conditions checked.
I see the benefit of the other way, that it saves you from duplicating the trigger into the condition, but this way allows you to have additional conditions that can be checked after the rule is triggered. I think that once the concepts of triggers and conditions are clear, this way is more intuitive for new users.
1 Like
Quick update for v2.0 release. I just confirmed that the SmartApp update release was pushed to tomorrow. @slagle said I could blame him 
4 Likes
Not publicly! We’re no longer friends! 
JK, it really is all my fault. I take all the blame!
1 Like