I am wanting to use Presence (via Life 360) to switch on and off a porch light. With the Smartlighting app there does not seem to be the function “switch of after XX minutes” if you use Presence. It works in that the porch light comes on, but I guess it then stays on as you are home !
I want the porch light to come on when I come home, and then switch off after XX minutes.
Is there a smartapp that already has managed this, as I cant find it!
Edit…I should add that the “OFF” should only be triggered if the “ON” was triggered by the arrival Presence…otherwise a manual switching on would/might switch off under the same smartapp if you were at home?
smartapp “Smart Lighting” will implement “turn-on-with-arrival-then-delay-turn-off-3-minutes”.
AFAIK it will not accommodate manual override - you could webcore it or my preference, skip it.
Actually, as far as I see, in Smartlighting you can do the “turn off after” with,say,motion as the trigger…but if you select the trigger as Presence then that option no longer shows…
Maybe Presence is not a practical trigger here.
I don’t know what options are available with the “smartthings ( Samsung connect)” app, as its rule engine is different.
But you can definitely do this with smartthings classic app by setting up a virtual timer for that particular Light and then having the timer turn on with presence. Then you set up a separate automation using the “power allowance” feature to always turn the timer off again after three minutes or whatever.
Because you are applying the turn off automation to the virtual timer rather than to the light itself, you can still turn on the physical light with any other automation or manually and it won’t turn itself off again .
Instructions for doing this are in the how to article in the community – created wiki on setting up a virtual timer.
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_create_a_virtual_timer_for_a_light
Alternatively, as was mentioned, you could use webcore, but that might be overkill if all you want is a timer on that particular light for that particular use case.
I use presence to trigger an “arriving” mode (used to unlock the interior door when the garage door opens, but only when I or my wife is coming home). When I open the door the mode switches to “home”. Similarly, if you have contact sensors on your door(s), you could use the door opening to turn the light off when you go inside.
which app are you using? The new app JD mentioned you can do this with the custom automation creator.
Thanks all, I will look further !
Many thanks, indeed…this does seem to have resolved my query.
Hi. I’m trying achieve the same - I want some lights to come on with arrival (which I can do in smart lighting app) but then to turn off after x mins (but only if it was this arrival that triggered the lights in the first instance). I can do this with other triggers in the ST app like open/close etc but not with presence. Please can you explain how you achieved this? Many thanks.
I m away right now…but meantime I am sure I just followed the guide mentioned by JDRoberts.
From memory, the concept is that instead of using a real switch such as a door sensor, you use a virtual switch in coding (if that is the right word!). I used mobile phones via life 360 as the presence sensors. The option of how long the light is on which was missing in the smartlighting with presence sensors must be then available again …I guess in the virtual switch set up.
Anyway…It was all very straight forward…or I would have got lost. Try just following the link mentioned…let me know if this isn’t working for you and I will have a look when home.
Thank you very much for your reply.
I’ve set up a virtual switch and set a rule to turn on this virtual switch when someone arrives.
I then went created another rule to turn on the lights when this virtual switch is on. However, I still don’t see the option in smart lighting to turn it off after x mins.
I’m totally stumped. Any advice appreciated.
Looking via my phone… it looks like I have two separate smart apps with the virtual switch…one for ON via the presence and another for OFF which is after XX minutes…ie called virtual switch on…and another virtual switch off…
So…another standard lighting smartapp but this time using the virtual switch as the switch and set the trigger as “power allowance” and then you have the option of how many minutes
Let me know if that sorts it!
Ah yes. I see. I’ve set it up so the arrival turns on a virtual switch, which itself turns off after power allowance of x mins.
The lights are set to mirror the switch.
I hope this works!
Thanks again for your help