Thoughts on Modes

General Discussion
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One specific reason I could use multiple modes and/or flags. Vacation. If I am gone for 2 or more days, it would be nice to have a ‘vacation’ flag. Then some of my day-to-day apps would be set to not fire if on vacation and conversely, some security apps would only fire when on vacation. Vacation is different than ‘Away’ in this case…

Another reason, entertaining mode. In this mode, some of my apps set to occur at a specific time of night would not fire because we are entertaining people…

That’s it - I have said all I can to make my case for multi-modes/flags :slight_smile:

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Has anyone received any updates on this need from SmartThings?

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What a great discussion. From all I read, it appears as if my suggestion from October last year (Scroll up), which involves the creation modes as groups (much more detail at the start of this thread), would in fact solve all the problems mentioned in the thread.

I’m considering starting to code a generic mode device, which can handle dynamic modes. The downside would be that it’s a lot of work, and I prefer if Smartthings would simply re-think their mode handling to actually support it as a standard feature. The crux we all come back to is you can be at-home at night and at-home during the day, and with a few more of these, the number of ‘pseudo’ modes becomes unmanageable quickly. Also, while you theoretically can code your way out of pretty much anything, that’s not a solution.

It’s a pretty forward problem to solve, I believe my outlined solution would satisfy all the requests, so my question to Smartthings is: What are you building? When will we have it? And what will it support exactly?

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56

Couldn’t agree with this suggestion more. I have edited my modes more times than I can count, and I still can’t get them the way I want. There are too many apps that are trying to deal with this lack of ability.

The problem is that I can’t conditionally change to a mode based on multiple inputs, I only get one mode choice. So if I arrive home and it’s day or night I lose track of that. Yes I could ignore day/night as a mode, and try to use triggers, but then I lose the ability to restrict based on that mode.

ST becomes much more powerful when it implements multiple mode sets as described, Night/Day, Home/Away/Vacation, etc.

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I’ve managed to code around some of the more obvious ones like coming home and setting a mode based on the light level, but I could’t agree more - multiple mode sets and multivalue logic to operate on them is IMO the way forward for folks to be able to configure this without needing to program. Although I get a kick out of programming my house, I recognize it’s a niche thing, and for HA (and hopefully ST) to go really mainstream, we need this kind of flexibility baked in without the need for coding (but keep the ability to code too please!!!)

And by multivalue logic I mean the ability to use and/or, relative comparisons, and multiple clauses with the ability to group. The multivalve logic needs to apply to the “If This” as well as the “Then That” so we can say something like:

If (presence.mode changes from “Away” to (“Someone Home” or “Everyone Home”) and (house.mode is “Away” or “Vacation”)) then (if the light level from the sensor < 300 lux turn on the lights and set house.mode to “Evening” else set house.mode to “Day”)

Not a great example but you get the idea …

I have seen this kind of interface done well in other applications and it can be made pretty intuitive, yet can be really powerful.

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I use 4 modes and they have always worked great for me: Home - Day, Home - Night, Away - Day, Away - Night. I use Hello, Home actions to have them automatically switch based on presence and day/night.

It takes 8 actions for this to work right: Come Home Day, Come Home Night, Leave Home Day, Leave Home Night, Sunrise Home, Sunrise Away, Sunset Home, Sunset Away.

These allow the modes to cycle automatically. For them to work right, though, it’s real important to specify which modes each action is NOT supposed to trigger the change to occur under. This is specified under the “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one if these modes…” field. Let me know if anyone would like to know how I set this up more specifically.

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I’d like to know, but was afraid it’d come to this…

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@bridaus, no problem! It does take about 20 -30 minutes to setup correctly, but once you have it set it’s good to go. Also, the steps are pretty repetitive so once you get the hang of my logic it goes by pretty fast. Here are the steps:

  1. Go into the screen where you add/remove/rename your modes
    1a) Change Home to Home Day
    1b) Change Away to Away Day
    1c) Remove Night
    1d) Add a new mode called Home Night
    1e) Add a new mode called Away Night

Now you should have all four modes: Home - Day, Home - Night, Away - Day, Away - Night.

  1. Go into Hello, Home
    2a) Create a new Action called Come Home Day. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Home Day. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Come Home Day” when…” to occur when Someone arrives. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Day, Home Night, and Away Night.

2b) Create a new Action called Come Home Night. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Home Night. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Come Home Night” when…” to occur when Someone arrives. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Day, Home Night, and Away Day.

2c) Create a new Action called Leave Home Day. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Away Day. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Leave Home Day” when…” to occur when Everyone leaves. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Night, Away Day, and Away Night.

2d) Create a new Action called Leave Home Night. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Away Night. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Leave Home Night” when…” to occur when Everyone leaves. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Day, Away Day, and Away Night.

2e) Create a new Action called Sunrise Home. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Home Day. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Sunrise Home” when…” to occur at Sunrise. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Day, Away Day, and Away Night.

2f) Create a new Action called Sunrise Away. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Away Day. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Sunrise Away” when…” to occur at Sunrise. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Day, Home Night, and Away Day.

2g) Create a new Action called Sunset Home. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Home Night. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Sunset Home” when…” to occur at Sunset. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Night, Away Day, and Away Night.

2h) Create a new Action called Sunset Away. Under “What do you want to happen?” set “Change the mode to” Away Night. Under “Additional settings” set “Automatically perform “Sunset Away” when…” to occur at Sunset. Under “Additional settings” in this same section check the boxes under “Don’t automatically do this if I am in one of these modes” for Home Day, Home Night, and Away Night.

That’s it! Your four modes should begin switching automatically now based on presence and whether it’s day or night. Now just be sure to go into any of your lights, door locks, etc. that you have programmed to turn on/off, lock/unlock, etc. and select which of the four modes you want the actions to occur under.

Let me know of any questions.

9 Likes
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Hi all, I actually was just trying this step-by-step process I put together out on a fresh Hub and noticed an issue. The issue is that instead of changing the three existing Modes to match one of the four I have specified, you need to actually delete each them and “Add New Mode”. I was running into an issue where the Hello, Home actions I created to transition between the Modes weren’t working. It would give a message saying “I was not able to change the mode to Home Night as you requested because it is not one of the modes defined for this location.” I solved the issue by deleting all of the Modes I created/updated and just re-added each (Home Day, Home Night, Away Day, Away Night).

Anyways, let me know of any questions.

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How is this routine different than Tim’s Magic Home app? Thanks.

http://community.smartthings.com/t/hello-home-im-back-set-different-modes-based-on-time/4167/15
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@triggertact
Check out my Magic Home app. Does this completely automagically. No tricky 30 step process.

Submitted this to STs for official support as well:)

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^^^^^ THIS! Tim did an awesome job with this app, and it works perfectly!

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Thanks for the clarification. Tim, appreciate you making updates to the program. Works great.

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@tslagle13 Oh wow, very cool! Totally missed this on the forum. So little time to look around for these things.

Anyways, I just tried it out and I have a question: It looks like the app is designed to switch between the modes only when someone comes home or everyone leaves, then it checks whether it’s day/night to determine which phrase to run. If that’s the case, then does it not switch between day and night modes automatically while already in Home or Away modes? In other words, will it automatically switch from Home Day mode to Home Night mode when sunset occurs (and visa versa) or Away Day to Away Night when sunset occurs (and visa versa)?

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It does switch automagically in this case :smile:

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And it was mentioned in a separate topic… some of us have certain lights that stay on when we are home @ sunset. Generally, the house gets dark about 30-45 minutes before sunset, so you might want the lights to come on sooner. You can configure your specific home @ sunset phrase to automatically run XX number of minutes before sunset, but you will also need to tell it to NOT perform the action if you are in any sort of away mode.

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Tim, I am so going to bother you one of these days setting up your magic! Haven’t set it up as yet! :wink:

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I just started using it and haven’t had any problems.

Well, none that aren’t my own fault at least… :slight_smile:

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@tslagle13 Very cool! I’ll try it out tonight. Is there any chance this SmartApp will be available through the SmartThings SmartSetup? I’m a homebuilder and we include SmartThings with our homes so it would be ideal for our customers if they didn’t have to worry about creating an account on graph.api.smartthings.com and making the SmartApp by copying/pasting code as it’s probably too complicated for most.

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@tslagle13

I just loaded Tim’s Magic Home App.
I deleted my old Modes and Hello Home Actions.
I’m now using 4 Modes: Home Day, Home Night, Away Day, Away Night.
and 4 Hello Home Actions by the same name: Home Day, Home Night, Away Day, Away Night.

My question is setting up the Hello Home Actions (Hello Home, Gear Symbol):

Under "Automatically Perform _____Mode when:"
Everyone Leaves- I have Away Day & Away Night
Someone Arrives- I have Home Day & Home Night

When asked "Don’t Automatically do this if I am in one of these Modes is it best to put:
For Action:
Away Day- “Do not do when in” Away Night, Home Night, Away Day modes
Away Night- “Do not do when in” Away Day, Home Day, Away Night modes
Home Day- “Do not do when in” Away Night, Home Night, Home Day modes
Home Night- "Do not do when in"Away Day, Home Day, Home Night modes

Is this necessary or will the Magic Home App take care of this step?
If I should enter these “Do not do when in” modes, does it make any difference if I enter the Mode that’s named the same as that Action? ie list Away Day mode under “Do not do when” for the Away Day Action…

Confused yet… :smile:

Thanks