Thank you so much for working on this for me! I was hoping for advice, but the extra time and effort you’re giving is much appreciated! To answer your questions:
1&2) yes I use modes. Mostly a “bedtime” mode which when tapped, turns off the lights in the living room and kitchen and turns on our hallway light so we can see while usher the kids upstairs. I also have a couple of SmartApps like “Off Toggle” linked to the mode for turning on and off switches upstairs without having to turn on any light and risk waking the baby. I also use a “good morning” routine to automatically switch the mode to “home” at 8am which only really functions to turn off any switches that are still on upstairs, and make the off toggle apps null until bedtime again.
3) smart switches only at this time. The bulbs in the kitchen are the long incandescent ones so they likely won’t be smart bulbs for quite a while!
4) I don’t have any dimmer switches in the house, and as mentioned above, the bulbs in the kitchen aren’t conducive to dimming.
5) no Amazon echo at this time, although I’m definitely interested in getting one in the future. I love the concept, but haven’t convinced myself to sink the $179 into one. especially since if I got one I’d also want one in every room for the full home voice controlled effect, or none at all haha.
Thanks again for working on this!
That’s why I’m planning to tweak the time period to see what interval works best for us. Over a couple of weeks, I’m sure we’d find a functional time period during which we’re most likely to return to the kitchen. With some tweaking, I’m sure at some point we’ll be able to say, for example, “Ok, three minutes is pretty close. If we leave the kitchen and haven’t returned within three minutes of the lights turning off, we’re probably not going to return for several more minutes. And if we do, it’s probably for something quick for which we usually only need the ambient light of the living room anyway.”
Sounds good. This is going to bee multiple rules all working together. I’m at work, so I probably won’t have then done until later this evening.
How many switches are in your kitchen?
Silly question…does the rule machine require to run under only bravenel namespace? I’m asking because I am in the process of completely resetting my hub and rebuilding from ground up. If the namespace is changed, whenever I attempt to edit or add a new rule the app on my phone crashes. i have had a horrible time with options (triggers, conditions, etc) changing or flat disappearing causing absolute havoc with my house. Supposedly support has improved the platform and stabilized more so than it was previously. I have been a programmer and database developer for 15 some years. But what I have been seeing, in my professional opinion, has been more than just “unstable”. For example, I had carefully assembled a rule using presence, modes, etc to know whether or not the garage door should open when either of us entered in the neighborhood. I tested the crap out of it to make sure if I put my phone in airplane mode, restarted my phone, etc that smartthings didn’t just see me coming home and open the garage door; hence the modes, I must have been away before coming home. It was all in the sequence to help secure the logic, not 100% bullet proof but close enough. The only rule in the house that continues to work is turning on the outside lights at sunset and turning on the master bath vent with the humidity exceeds 45% and turning it off. Any “simple” rule was left working and when I come home and lights dont turn on or garage doesn’t open I go in and look at the rules; conditions or triggers (what have ya) is missing and the flow of the app is completely out of whack. Anyways, I am REALLY HOPING that just resetting my hub and redoing the rule machine will clean it all up and it starts to work like it should. Do I need to leave the namespace for the rule machine under bravenel?
The problems you are having are now a well known issue with the platform. The platform issue causes the Application State of some Rules to be lost. When that happens, the Rule is messed up, needless to say. These zombie rules have to be removed and recreated. Unfortunately, even doing that does not mean it won’t happen again.
The name space issue isn’t really relevant. Yes, both Rule and Rule Machine must be under bravenel. This is the mechanism by which they link to each other in the backend. In and of itself, the namespace is irrelevant – that is, the namespace should not cause you any issues and has nothing to do with the problems you are seeing.
Hi Bruce,
Is the code of Rule machine still available to use ?
I have a quite simple need (to operate a long chime when gate door opens) and I get a feeling that the Rule machine can help me achieve it pretty quickly .
appreciate your help !
Ofer.
Bruce ended support/life of his popular smartapp. There are some older versions floating around with apache 2.0 licensing, but you would need to find someone with it willing to distribute it to you.
There is a new popular rule engine being developed, it’s still in the alpha stage, but it would likely be able to handle any scenario you need. CoRE
From the sounds of it though the Stock SmartLighting app might be able to do what you require.
thanks for the reply. I downloaded SmartRules from the app store and it helped me configure what I need 