Here you go:
Regrettably, early marketing materials for Smart Home Monitor used the term “mode” for armed status, even though Mode already had a completely different meaning within SmartThings. You can still find this in some of the support knowledgebase articles, which is why it’s easy to get confused.
But anytime you see “mode” in a routine or smart app, it refers to the original use of the term, which was for the global status of the location: Home, Away, Night, etc. As in the kitchen motion sensor should trigger the lights to come on if the house is in Night mode.
If it’s referring to the SHM armed status (home, armed stay, armed away) The choices should be limited to those three options, and the field label will probably include “SHM.”
@chrisb had an excellent detailed explanation here:
SHM can be armed/disarmed via Routines.
And yeah, but the different things can get confusing at times, but there is a good reason for the different things. Modes are not the same as Routines which are not the same as SHM states.
Think of mode as a conditional state of being. What I mean is that depending on the mode your house is in, various things do or don’t happen. You can restrict or allow specific automations depending on what state you are in. For example, I might have a “night mode” where I want a I don’t want the app Big Talker making any voice announcements. Or I might have “vacation mode” where I want various lights to come on to fool people into thinking I’m home.
Think of a routine as a set of instructions to be run at a specific moment in time. Routines are not ‘states…
Just as an example, many people will have SHM set to “armed stay” while the global mode changes from "home " to “night” based on time of day. They are two independent variables.
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