Turn lights off after so many minutes?

I simply want the light to come on when door is opened and stay on for x amount of minutes and then turn off regardless of door position. This is not an option anywhere that I see in the newer ST app. Apparently the old ST app could do this.

I have found some posts on this but I am not seeing obvious solutions.

I have the GE z wave 26933 in wall dimmer motion switch and I am not impressed at this point with this switch. It has the same options as a regular dimmer when it comes to the ST app. No motion sensings alerts, no way to set options that regular motion sensors have.

I was better off just getting a regular dimmer and adding a motion sensor that has way more adjustable options.

I have tried to us Smartthings chat help and that is a friggen joke. It keeps asking if I am there and I keep replying and then it just tells me my session has ended even though I am actively trying to chat.

Thanks for any help

Smart Lighting has this option. However, I typically use webCoRE for my Home Automations.

Goto Marketplace and in the SmartApps Tab goto Switches and Lights to find Smart Lighting.

After installed, it will be in the Automation section.

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There’s also a how to article in the community – created wiki on adding a virtual timer to a switch which gives you a few more options than just using the basic smart lights feature, but is much easier to set up than webcore. So that’s kind of an intermediate option if you want to take a look at that as well. :sunglasses:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_create_a_virtual_timer_for_a_light

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Hello. Thank you for replying. I am looking to turn on a light when a door is opened based on a contact switch and then turning off after x amount of minutes regardless if the door is open or not. As it is not I can turn on the light with the door open but it stays as long as the door is open. I want it to shut off after a certain time. It isn’t motion based

I will take a look. Thank you

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Aww, use webCoRE!

If contact changes to open
Then using light turn on
Wait x minutes
Turn Off (always execute in settings)

I will have to spend some time with that. I saw the web pages on how to set everything up but man it looks like a lot of work. Thanks though

Really not much work. Just a little bit of a learning curve. If you really want to unleash the power of SmartThings, then it would benefit you to take about an hour and read up on the webCoRE Wiki. Then you’ll be equipped with the tools to build any rule you want in a matter of minutes!

I would love to have a consolidated list of every post where someone has stated:

  • I’m not a programmer
  • I’m not technical
  • Looks too difficult
  • Looks like a lot of work

And then cross reference those same community members that took the plunge into webCoRE and said:

  • Wow I didn’t realize it would be that easy
  • I wished I had done it sooner
  • Saved me so much time from what I was doing
  • This is so much fun
  • I feel like a programmer now
  • Wasn’t as scary as I thought

Give it a shot @livingaboard1. Ron wasn’t lying.

:slight_smile:

[deleted]

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Two smart lighting rules will work. One to turn on when door opens. Then use a power allowance rule to turn off after X minutes.

the power allowance feature doesn’t exist anymore that i could find

It’s still there when Action is set to turn off.

Well thank you very much. For the life of me I could not find that. I was not thinking I had to do a “turn off” selection in order for that to show up. I just thought it should show up as an option to turn off after my door opened. I will have to play around with this. I am going on my 2nd week or so of using this ST system with Action tiles. Lots to learn still

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I looked into this finally and one issue I see is that if you take action to trigger a light on, and then use this feature to turn the light off and the power allowance has been exceeded, the light will turn off, even if the door is still open (or you are still in their working). Maybe not an issue in a pantry per se.

So how do you set or input what the actual “power allowance” will be? In other words, I’ve set my coffee maker to turn off 10min after power allowance… but where do you choose what the allowance will be by watts? Or am I confused here?

It’s a confusing term. Power allowance is referring to time in this context.

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Perfect! Thx

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Power Allowance is not the answer for me. Turn off after so many minutes starting from when? Something needs to trigger it, like an door opening, then wait 5 minutes, then do this (example turn off switch X). I have found nothing that cooperates in this scenario. Using lighting automation triggered by say an open door gives no option to set a wait period. Something so simple.

Is this solving your case?

A lot of people will use a virtual switch as a timer. Use power allowance on the virtual switch, not the physical switch. have the physical switch mirror the virtual switch. That allows you to then use other methods to also turn on the regular physical device.

And you set up an automation with whatever triggers you want for the timer. It could be a sensor, it could be a different switch, it could be a time of day, it could be a mode change… The trigger turns on the virtual switch, the physical switch mirrors the virtual switch so it turns on also, power allowance turns off the virtual switch, and then the physical switch turns off because it is mirroring the virtual switch.

As mentioned above, there is a how to article in the community – created wiki on this process:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_create_a_virtual_timer_for_a_light