Someone Arrives - How to include Delay? Stuck on this one: need help, thanks!

Maybe I asked the question incorrectly but I could sure use some help. I need a delay to turn something off after I arrive home, plain and simple. I did use the Smart Switch Smart App but unfortunately that turns off my switch 5 minute after it’s turned on. What I need to do is turn off a switch 5 minute after I arrive home instead of immediately when I arrive home.

I am new to ST. I searched the community and tried a few things first but I am either stuck or confused.

What I’ve done - The additional setting when “Everyone Leaves” to perform a routine - Triggers that routine with a 3 minute delay (Minimum away time) to turn on a Switch after everyone leaves the house. It controls surveillance cameras in the house. The additional setting to perform a routine when “Someone Arrives” turns off the same switch (I use my cell phone and other people use arrival sensors).

When Someone Arrives it works and immediately turns off the switch. For security purposes, what I want to do is delay the turn off of the switch for a designated period of time just in case an intruder follows someone into the home). Minimum away time does not apply here.

I tried playing with the Smart Switch App (found in the community) but got confused because I am already using the Someone Arrives app and apps don’t call apps (right?).

Any guidance towards apps that have been written for this purpose or a clear thinker seeing an easier approach to this problem will be greatly appreciated.

Maybe I asked the question incorrectly but I could sure use some help. I need a delay to turn something off after I arrive home, plain and simple. I did use the Smart Switch Smart App but unfortunately that turns off my switch 5 minute after it’s turned on. What I need to do is turn off a switch 5 minute after I arrive home instead of immediately when I arrive home.

Hopefully one of the expert coders will help you.

Meanwell, it seems like you ought to be able to use a man in the middle thing where your arrival triggers a virtual switch which turns on and then turns off in 10 minutes and you have another switch which turns off when that switch turns off.

But I’m sure there are much more elegant ways to do it.

(I’m quadriparetic and depend on text to speech software, so I don’t touch the code if I can help it. Doing groovy with text-to-speech is no fun at all. )

Thanks for the guidance and yes I hope one of the expert coders will help out. I did try to create a Virtual Switch (new device as a simulated switch?) but I could not figure out how to link the virtual switch to the real one.

There Are a lot of different ways to link the simulated switch to the real one. You can do it with the smart lights smartapp under “smartthings recommends” in the marketplace if you haven’t already installed that. Have one switch go on when the other switch goes on.

This one is just an example, but I am telling the Roku Exit virtual switch to turn on when the guest room table light goes on. This is using the smart lights Smartapp.

Perhaps the smart turn it on app in smart apps would work. It would turn on your camera when you arrive and off a predetermined time later. You would have to see if it works properly with a device already on.

Maybe you already have figured this out, maybe not. You can use the new Smart App Trigger Happy to turn off a switch after X minutes.