When I was doing commercial installs, our rule of thumb for mesh networks was no more frequent than once every 15 minutes for one device. I don’t think it’s a coincidence than IFTTT uses the same interval.
I realize a lot of people would want something more frequent, but then we’d put them on a star network instead.
FWIW
3/22/2015 update
Added/fixed support for buttons.
Triggers for pushing or holding buttons the Minimote are working. Thank you @pmusselman for the Minimote, much appreciated!
Support for capability.doorControl added & untested
I added support for door controls, so now you can control your garage door with the rules engine. I don’t have one of these, so I have not tested with a real device. Let me know if you put it to use and if it works!
Days of the Week conditions
You can select which days a rule is active for by checking the box for each day.
Time of Day conditions.
You can set time conditions for:
Time is ___
Time is not ___
Time is earlier than ___
Time is later than ___
Time is between ___ and ___
(works for values like ‘between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM’ and also for overnight values like ‘between 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM’)
Up Next
Rule grouping - UI improvements to make it easier to keep things organized
Delayed action - wait ___ then do ____
Evaluating feasibility of capability.powerMeter
Pages/info for people who are not using the rules engine yet, overall presentation improvements, start focusing on the experience for someone who isn’t a power user - can my mom be comfortable using this?
Feedback
Anything and everything is helpful, keep it coming 
Thanks!
Joe, you are doing a great job and may appreciations for your work. My system has been running great thanks to your rules engine. And when my wife gets back from Brazil it will be nice for her to not complain and she will notice things more seamlessly thanks to your help.
Very excited for the wait xxx and do xxx!
Sunday, I went and added rules for all of my doors to send push notifications when they open or close. This morning. All day yesterday I got 2 notifications whenever it happened. One from rules engine one from ST app. I removed the smart apps that did notification. Then I was only getting one.
Today, the arduino I’m using for door sensors wasn’t working. I reset items after a half hour or so I started seeing updates in the activity log when doors open and close, but I’m not getting any notifications.
Any ideas why it’s not working today?
Todd
No idea sorry. I have contact sensors on my doors and have a rule set up for each one to notify me if it opens. It has been working without any issues for me.
Maybe set up a rule to turn on a light when the door opens, just to see if that aspect is working correctly.
I haven’t yet purchased a IOT device - been doing a lot of research and landed here. My top two choices seem to be Wink and SmartThings, but as a Windows and Android kinda guy, I like the versatility that I see in SmartThings - even if these environments tend to be a little chaotic.
This rules engine looks (from the outside, anyway) to be really promising, and may have just cemented my choice of platform.
However, I’ve gotta say that I’m not really that hot on it being 1) hosted on a remote web server and 2) Hosted on a dev server by an enthusiast who might suddenly pull it down. (Please take no offense to that, @JoeC - it looks like you’ve done great work and are carrying the community forward, but you get my drift, I hope.)
I think this would be extremely valuable to the SmartThings product if handled in one of two ways. 1) Allow the download of some sort of local app or webfile that could be run on a local, networked computer that could be accessed via a static IP - even during an internet down period, much like we can access a router’s configuration via an IP as long as we are locally connected.
I guess a third option would be a way to jailbreak the hub v2 and force this rules engine into its memory along with a way to provide access via the software.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? If option #2 (or 3) were a real possibility, I might just wait until v2 comes out and then make my purchase…
Thanks for letting me try this out. My first test unfortunately didn’t work. As someone who develops a piece of free software for the biomedical research community in R, I groan when I get a comment like this.
I tried to set up a rule to turn on the lights in the garage (on a z-wave switch) when motion is detected and an outdoor hardwired Aeon multisensor illuminance is <400, i.e. it’s getting dark outside. It didn’t work. When I tested the rules engine by just turning on with motion, it worked. I don’t know if the problem is the engine not reading the illuminance correctly, or something else? I have a custom Aeon multi device type set up due to earlier problems with it, but it functions well now. When the lights wouldn’t turn on, I verified that the Aeon multi smart app illuminance tile was <400, and that motion was detected in the garage.
It isn’t critical, but thought I’d share in case others have had a problem with illuminance. The interface for the rules engine is GREAT! Thanks.
You know, maybe the easiest way to make it local is to take what’s gone into the webapp and funnel it into a smartphone app which just writes to a config file on the ST Base v2.
Of course, since ST has apparently got their own pay app (at least for iPhone), they may not be interested in combining it with their app software. http://smartrulesapp.com/
I wonder if they’re willing to be open enough for competition…
Ah - well I certainly don’t have a problem with a enthusiast charging for what should be a part of the actual product but isn’t.
Beside the fact that it appears to be a phone app (though iOS only), what’s the difference between that and what @JoeC has done?
Just two different people solving the same problem in their own way.
I guess I view my rules engine as an experiment and for-fun side project. Maybe a rules engine should be part of the stock app, maybe not. Everything is early stage. At best, I’d like to influence the greater conversation that is going on about how home automation can be brought to the masses. There has to be the right balance of easy/powerful.
Right now mostly enthusiasts and power users are using the thing I’ve built, but that isn’t really who I am thinking of when making decisions about what to do and what not to do. I want to jointly explore the rules engine idea and see if it could be viable for the 90% of people who might benefit from home automation/control, but who would never even consider learning the inner workings of the underlying system. An external web app is fine for experimenting and power users can provide good feedback, but I’m really not building this for you
‘Testing’ in the case of this rules engine is not just getting to a working product, but also beta testing on a conceptual basis. Maybe SmartThings should include a rules engine in the stock app, maybe not. Hopefully our experiences here can help guide them in that decision.
I think you’re right, @JoeC - this would help bring ST to the masses if implemented (even if you’re doing it for your own jollies! 
)
In any case, once I eventually get around to buying the system, I’m going to hit you back up and join in the fray.
What do you think about my above comments regarding making it something that works locally, perhaps via a config file on the ST Base v2? I know the hardware isn’t out yet, but I think it’d be really cool if it were able to be done.
Would you mind testing it out again? I think I found the bug that was causing the issue.
3/27/2015 update
Delayed Actions
Now you can specify a delay time for any device action, in seconds. Hello Home phrases, mode changes, and push notifications will be included soon, but I wanted to get this out there. The UI is rough, but it will have to do for now.
Rule grouping and organization
This has been up for a few days now, anyone get a chance to use it yet? At the bottom of the rule list page there is a button for Organize Mode. While in Organize Mode you can drag and drop rules to change their display order. You can also create rule groups then drag and drop rules into the groups. Rule groups can be re-ordered too. Hopefully this will be helpful. It was a fun way to get reacquainted with JQuery UI.
Bug Fixes
You guys reported a couple of bugs, thank you! I maybe fixed them? If you had an issue take a look and see if it works now. Yay testing!
Nice! It worked this time with the illuminance condition. BTW, I also tested it with a delay and that worked too. 
One minor bug I found though was that if I made the rule with one motion sensor, and then went back to edit to change the motion sensor to a different one, the okay button wasn’t functional any longer, so I couldn’t commit the change.
Yes, I tried it out and it worked nicely. It’s great to be able to do that. If you move a rule from the top spot somewhere else, or delete it, the top spot stays empty, i.e. the others don’t move up to fill the gap. Minor issue, but I guess it could be slightly annoying if you had a bunch of rules to move up manually.
Could we get a toggle option for switches and dimmers? That way we wouldn’t have to have two rules to have a mini mote button turn something on or off.
If button 1 pressed, toggle switch
Is easier than
If button 1 pressed and switch is on, turn switch off
If button 1 pressed and switch is off, turn switch on
Thanks.