I’m not 100% if this is the right category. If it isn’t, I will happily change it.
I was talking to an electrician friend who just helped set up a Lutron RadioRA system, and he mentioned a fun feature they added for the client: the lights are programmed to turn off back to front when he leaves. For example, when he hits the “goodbye” switch, the bedroom lights turn off, and then the halls, the kitchen, then dining room, and lastly the front entry. My friend said the idea was that you could hit the off button anywhere in the house and the lights would allow you to leave without tripping in the dark. I suppose you could say that it is similar to the lights “following” you with motion sensors, but timed instead of triggering. In theory, this could also be used when arriving home / waking up (although not as practical) and going to bed. Does anyone know of any sort of routine or SmartApp that may utilize this sort of functionality, or something similar? I am all ears!
I use SmartThings V1 as my primary hub, but I do also have Philips Hue V1 tied in as well as Homekit via Homebridge. I’m open to ideas!
As a final note, I am not heartbroken if we can’t figure this one out. It is just a fun idea.
You could do this with something like CoRE, just make sure you leave enough time in between turning off each area because there may be some latency (1 light in a room may turn off before the other light in the same room by a second and a half).
(I’ve moved this to the smartapp ideas category because it’s something that gets done with software in SmartThings rather than devices, so you should get more answers here. )
Sounds like a fun idea!
There are multiple ways to do this with daisychains, but at this point I would second the suggestion for core, as it will give you the most flexibility.
Thanks JD for moving the thread. That category makes sense!
I have never heard of CoRE before, so I will have to play around with it a bit. Looks like a good way to make ideas happen without going into full-out “dev mode”.
@diehllane, when you mention latency, are you referring to the delays that can happen within mesh networks, or something to do with CoRE itself? Regardless, it sounds like it could be a good option.
That’s a daisy chain, but the problem is making it happen only from the initial trigger, of the person leaving the house, or as part of the wake up routine… Core just gives you a lot more options for controlling when these kind of sequences will happen.
I could see it working in a pinch, but wouldn’t that cause it to act in an annoying fashion if I decided to turn any one light off? I suppose that might be what JD meant by an initital trigger. I’ll keep looking into CoRE. @TN_Oldman, if you have any ideas on how to daisy chain without those issues I am all ears.
The way to do it without core would be to create a virtual switch to represent each of the physical switches, daisychain the virtual switches, have the physical switches follow the virtual switches, and then have the trigger only apply to the first virtual switch in the daisychain. That leaves you free to use any other method for controlling the actual physical switches without initiating the daisychain action.
So it can be done, but it’s a lot to keep track of, and Core just provides a more elegant solution now.
Yeah, that looks complicated! I will keep it in mind as a backup. I’ll probably play around with this tomorrow or the next day, as today is crazy crazy. I like these random projects, though!
Alright, I tried it out! That app is wonderful - a bit like IFTTT for SmartThings. My only complaint is that I can’t program the “wait” function for decimals - say 1.5 seconds, rather than 1 or 2. I basically added a “Then” function for each room, programming each to wait a second longer than the previous. I may change that to 2-second intervals, and that’s where the half seconds would have been handy. CoRE looks like it has plenty of other functionality - I’m going to have to play around with colour functions for my Hue bulbs and IFTTT functions.
The only thing I wasn’t too sure about was what “Piston Mode” entails. I left it at basic.
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