Please please make this simple change to the smart app smart lights.
I set a smart light action up called midnight snack.
When motion in desired area is detected between sunset and sunrise
Turn on lights a,b,c,d, etc (the path walked to the kitchen for a snack)
3 minute duration and turn back off.
Here’s the problem…
The action works great for midnight snacks.
However in the evening, let’s say I have some lights on already…
And some walks by the motion sensor. It triggers midnight snack.
Turning on lights, some of which were already on. No problem there.
But… in 3 minutes it will turn off all lights in the action.
Including the ones that were already on before midnight snack
Was initiated.
It would be very helpfull if this smart app would have an option
To only turn off lights that were NOT on before.
Basically if one or more of the lights was already on then leave it on.
That’s a good feature to have and we won’t get it for a while so in the mean time since it’s a midnight snack. Instead of sunset to Sunrise. You can narrow down the time a little such as 11pm to Sunrise? Or if you don’t care or not qualify for local processing. You can do this with CoRE smartapp.
I agree that this is really annoying about Smart Lights. My home office uses Smart Lighting - it’s pretty common for my wife and I to need to pop into it without spending a lot of time (I don’t typically work from home). So it’s nice in those cases to have the light turn on automatically. However, today I was working there all afternoon - it was annoying to me that there was no way I could either disable the motion activated light OR have it stay on. (sometimes I don’t move for a couple of minutes at a time, according to the motion sensor, when I’m working.)
There’s a custom smart app way to do it, but I want as little latency as possible with motion + light automations.
Hey guys, maybe I want to suggest something here about smart lighting smart app.
But I want to ask first if this happen to others or only me
At smart lighting menu, there’s option to determine trigger called "Select Trigger"
and select "When Mode Changes"
and then there’s option “Also turn off when mode changes back” I turn it on
And that’s the problem
My light is not turning back off when mode changes back.
Actually what I need is create single tap to change several switch and philips hue, also with dimming and different color.
The coolest way is to create new routine, but there’s a limitation, no color changing. So i use changing mode function to create more advance lighting option. But, I found problem with smart lighting that I tell above
Just tested it and just want to confirm it’s not working with “Also turn off when mode changes back”.
I am reporting it to support and you should as well so they can fix this.
Yes, that is why I had to switch to Core. I loved this App but it kept turning off lights when I was working in a room for any length of time. Unless I danced around in front of the sensors constantly. Heh.
Even the Lighting Director or Dark Lighting Apps didn’t have an option to say ‘Unless they are already On’.
I use Smart Lighting to “turn on” lights (speedy local processing on the v2 hub.) To implement my “turn off” logic (for complicated logic situations) I use CoRe. Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too!
This may not help exactly in your situation, but it may help others to consider using multiple SmartApps to accomplish what most would assume has to be done with one.
I took some time and tested this here on my end. I was able to replicate the same results here as well. I have passed this information on to be looked at by our developers.
In the meantime, I would suggest setting up another Smart Lighting automation that turns off the lights when the mode changes to the other modes."
I think I have overcomplicated the logic here.
its not really an issue of turn off logic at all.
a better way to think of it is. adding an additional
logic to the turn on.
I originally described the issue as relating to the trigger turning off
lights that were
already on when the smartlighting triggered a motion based action.
that motion based action ends with the light being turned off.
A better way to describe the need, is that we need to be able to apply
more conditions to the start of the sequence.
Existing Command
Turn on when : Motion Starts
More options:
Only during a certain time -> 11:00pm Ending at Sunrise
Proposed Modification
Turn on when : Motion Starts
More options:
Only during a certain time -> 11:00pm Ending at Sunrise
Only if (selection of light(s)) is (on/off)
so if the desired light is already on, the trigger never happens so the exit
routine wont happen because the original condition was never met because
the light was already on.
looking at the problem and addressing it this way simplifies the solution.
-dave
if the light is already on, then the turn on shouldnt trigger, and
therefore since the rule didnt trigger
in the first place
It was mentioned before that smart lighting smartapps is meant to be easy enough for everyone so they dumbed it down to this level right now. They recently added lux to it and it’s still beta and no local processing of using that option. Tried it and it’s more like Alpha. Too bad CoRE is not local.
I’d like to strongly second this request as well. It’s driving me nuts. I have all of my lights turn on and off with motion sensors and if we have guests over sitting at the dining room table and we aren’t moving enough suddenly all the lights turn off… My wife rolls her eyes and I sit there for the next 10 minutes reprogramming my hub to keep the lights on for an hour after motion. Then when everyone leaves I have to remember to put it all back.
I was thinking about having an ‘override’ mode that would disable my smartlighting, but I recently found “Improved Smart Light Timer” (Below) it works great… but only for switches, not for RBGW lights, or dimmers… So that’s only partially useful. Then I tried CoRE and I think it’s working, but man is that a pain to setup my 7 lights.
SmartThings… can you please update the standard Smart Lighting app to include a ‘if the light wasn’t already on’ option?
The last bit is EXACTLY what I have been looking for. This cannot be very hard to implement.
I basically want to make sure that my “lights on” action onyl gets triggered if my lights have been off before.
Gave up on Smart Lighting when doing more than just basic turning off/on or dimming with motion or contact or whatever. It really is a basic app that does basic things which potentially causes major issues.
One of my major issues was when I set Smart Lighting to set a certain percentage with a trigger such as motion, whenever you wanted to over-ride it manually, Smart Lighting would still dim the light again with motion. “Babe turn the lights all the way on”, “OK”, “Thanks” someone walks by the motion sensor, then “Babe!!! ARRRRG turn that junk off!”
Also remember, the “turn off after” in Smart Lighting is cloud based so…
Although CoRE goes to the clouds, my lights still turn on within less than a second so anything other than basic lighting, I would use CoRE until they implement some of the suggestions posted in this thread.
On the off chance the developers read this, I would like better options for adjusting the color; especially shades of white. I can’t get anywhere near 6500K with the limited presets offered…which is odd considering that is a reference color and ideal for TV backlighting.
Can someone clarify how the turn off on inactivity of motion works? I am trying to achieve the below. Working with CoRE now, but would like to understand if this is something possible in the Smart Lighting app already.
Turn on light if motion becomes active.
Turn off light after 3 mins of inactivity. (Even if not turned on by motion)
When turned on manually (not with motion), I want it to be on for at least 3 mins before turning off due to inactivity.
I loved this App but it kept turning off lights when I was working in a room for any length of time. Unless I danced around in front of the sensors constantly. Heh.