Rule Machine - Get peer assistance here with setting up rules

Please posts a screenshot of your rules. I’m interested in how well this works in a multi person home

I don’t have motions but I can post my visual low battery notification which would be similar.


So you would build your trigger for your kitchen motion as on & using your laundry room light & put it in your laundry room false field.

So when done you have a rule for your kitchen lights, a rule for your laundry room lights & a trigger for your kitchen motion using your laundry room light attached to your Landry room rule.

I just read the multi person part. It will only work if no motion is detected in laundry room.

Ok, I’ve got that. But my problem is this. What if someone else is in the laundry room but hasn’t triggered the motion sensor again.

Note - all of my motion sensors reset between 15-30 seconds.

Here is an issue I’m trying to work. There are a tin of scenarios and I’m trying to get them all to work seamlessly.

This applies to my master bathroom. Currently I have 8 rules for this one room.

Infok

  • This room is used by two people. Each of had our preferences on our lighting types. I like low level indirect lighting. My wife likes bright direct lighting, unless she’s in a different mood and wants something different (she is the ever changing variable, we’ll call her variable “crazy Irish chick”).
  • The room consist of a walk in closet, garden tub, shower, vanity area, and toilet area. Each with lighting.
  • there are six modes that require different light scenarios

Hardware:
2 - motion sensors (1 covers the entire room, the other is in the shower)
4 - smart switches (Lights)
2 - smart switches (fans)
1 - Amazon echo

Morning mode - (0600-0830) This is for me. I want the lights on low. I walk in and the toilet and closet lights come on at 10%. They go off after 2 minutes of no motion. When I open the shower for the tub and shower lights come on, and go off after two minutes of no motion. So when I get in the shower those lights are on, and two minutes later the other lights go off. The shower remains on. If my wide comes in the other lights come on low (it’s my modes, she gets over it). The fans also come on when the shower starts. Once I’m out of the shower, the other lights come on, still lie but the sun is up coming through the east facing picture window. 2 minutes later, shower lights go off. Fans stay on for 20 more minutes. Everything turns off (except the fans) after 2 minutes.
Day mode (0830-1630) this is the wife’s mode. She walks in and everything turn on to 100%. Hopefully she has had her coffee, but I don’t care cause I’m already gone to work. The lights do this all day until evening mode.

So, the list goes on and on. But writing this out I figured out what I need to do. I need to add a couple of more rules based on mode and motion. I just have to be careful that they aren’t stepping in each other.

My goal is so that multiple rules control the same devices based on different conditions. But as the lights switch from one rule control to another, they absolutely can not blink off and back on. That is totally unacceptable to the wife.

I’m sure this didn’t make sense, but it does to me… So thanks… And if you want to see all if the rules, I can post them.

But back to the original topic. If she is at the vanity and the lights are being controlled by her motion rules and she leaves the room, I do not want the shower lights to go off, and vice versa. I’m seeing where the lights in one room being triggered off due to rule truth of another room will conflict and make the lights blink.

I’m just not grasping how they will work when applied to motion sensors.

If someone’s in the laundry room & no motion is detected in the laundry room however the kitchen motion is triggered 1min after the other person went into the laundry room then someone will be living by themselves after that lol (Meaning light shuts off in laundry room, wife bumps her head husband moved into dog house).

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Exactly what I thought! That’s what I want to avoid! That’s what I must avoid! She’s Irish, red headed, green eyed, own guns, great shot! The lights must stay on! ! ! !

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Until we can incorporate geo beacons this won’t be possible. If we do get beacon capabilities it will only work if one person is in the room at a time. I’m not sure if the other comes in will it override the previous setting, because I don’t think you can set priorities.

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Yeah, I’m think HAL 2000 that can actively track individual persons via camera or IR is about the only other way to do this.

Or, I’m going to have a whole lot of motion sensors. I’m already thinking I need at least two more for my master bath to fully incorporate what I want. And I may change out the light switches for Phillips bulbs to adjust for brightness and configurability.

And I’ll control it all with less than 100 rules for just that room!

I’m going to Lowe’s today!

Wait you have Alexa right? Then what you might be able to do is create a standard rule for the bathroom with lights set at the half way point between your setting & your wife’s setting. This will be the default when anyone walks into the bathroom. Then create a rule & call it wife’s lights then set that rule to her parameters for the bathroom. This is the part I’m not 100% about because I don’t own Alexa, but in theory you should be able to say “Alexa turn on wife’s lights”.

Yes, using virtual switches that if possible… But it’s early… In the morning… Pre coffee for her… The way I deal with her…, I don’t deal with her! Lol

That is a with work around, but it still isn’t what I want it to do… Ugh

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@bravenel Bruce is it possible to have Conditional Triggers tied together like rules & triggers? What I mean is assuming everything else is set what I want to do is build two CT’s (Lights on/lights off) then build a CT to act like my main rule & tie my two Lights on/off CTs into the actions field.

Yes, they are just like Rules. You can cause them to be evaluated (which is as if they were triggered by one of their trigger events), or you can run their Actions for True.

Perfect I’m doing some house cleaning combining my events to fewer rules. Page was getting way to big to navigate :grin:

I think I’m doing what you’re talking about above, except inn using rules and triggers.

The trigger is fired via motion. It changes the Boolean on multiple other rules.

The other rules are conditional rules that must meet all conditions before true. One of those is the correct Boolean.

So the one motion trigger affects multiple rules, each with their own conditions.

Now after talking with you, I think I’ve got this!

Just build rules specific to me and my wife. include conditions that would normally occur when either of us goes into a room… Then they fire… It won’t be HAL 2000 perfect, but it will work!

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This one I’m working on will be big.

One Parent-Conditional Trigger with the following below attached.

Two Children-Conditional Triggers

And Three Grandchildren-Triggers.

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Please tag me when you post these!

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Wow. Completely confused.

After thinking about it, the issue I am trying to solve is whether I can evaluate the truthfulness of a rule within a certain period of time, for instance.

  1. If Mode Changes from Away to Home and;
  2. Within 30 seconds of mode change, laundry room motion is detected then
    3 [action]

Yes… Try this…

Conditional trigger:

Trigger - mode change occurs
Condition - motion on
Rule - motion on
Actions for true - delay all 30 seconds, chose rest of actions
Actions for false - what ever you want

Thirty seconds after the mode change this will run if the motion sensor is active. If it’s not active it will do nothing

No, you would need something different to test motion after 30 seconds, or use Cancel.

I think I worded that wrong…

Mode Change fires the trigger. The trigger checks to see if motion is active. If it is, then it performs actions for true. If not, it does nothing.

That should work.