Aha! Excellent, had no idea this happened when you do that. Great tip!
So. Iāve been using rule machine to set and change my modes since around Oct or Nov and in that time I can honestly say that Iāve missed a mode change less than 10 times, probably around 5.
Well, with the abandonment of rule machines developer and the recent (good) changes to the platform, rule machine has become unstable for me. Each day it gets worse. Rules going off at all goes and all kinds of stuff. It makes me feel like Iāve been using SHM.
Well last night I decided to move away from RM. I cleared 21 rules from RM. These include all of my routines and mode changing rules. I moved those over to ST routines.
Well Iām proud to say that Iāve gone through exactly 2 modes changes with a reliability rate of 50%!!!
The routines fired on time and fired everything except change the mode. Very sad ST, very sad.
So, I am here asking, what else is there to change modes for us? And good apps?
I donāt want to use virtual switches either. Iām at the 100 device limit for same capabilities, so no more virtual switches for me.
Iām looking for ideasā¦ Thanks in advance!
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Hey, trim down your routines so they donāt time out. And if you change modes, try not to combine them with API based devices. I havenāt had one problem in months following this principleā¦
And another rule of thumb, try not to use routines to turn lights off, you have Smart Lighting for that.
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If only it were that simple. 
I have one routine that does nothing but change the mode every morning at 7 AM. No devices at all. It still fails two or three times a month.
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Well, thatās 90%ā¦If you keep adding devices to that routine, your reliability tanksā¦
My morning routine fired at 0555 (on schedule).
It did this and changes the mode to morning.
This one failed to change the mode. It performed all functions, but the mode change. I fired it manually three more times. Failure. The mobile app and the ide showed the mode to still be morning. I asked Alexa to change the mode to day. She responded that the mode was already in day. I had to manually change it in the IDE to get the mobile so and IDE to reflect it.
Ok, so youāre saying use routines for mode change only.
Then create smart lighting rules to control the lights based on made changes.
Is that right?
Been there, done that. I havenāt ran into this issue for months. Is a out of sync situation between hub and cloud. Never figured out why that is happening, maybe @slagle has an idea what may trigger itā¦
Cool. Iāll give your advice a shot and see what happens.
Iām just looking forward to @ady624 releasing ver one.
I believe that app is going to make RM look like smart lighting.
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Itās a shame youāre still having problems with mode changes. I use the morning, night, home, and away routines to switch devices and system modes and have had 100% success over the past 4 weeks. I initially had issues with routines not completing, but moved about 30 devices over to smart lighting rules to trigger on mode changes and have had zero issues since.
As bad as ST may seem, coming from Iris V2, I can tell you that ST is rock solid comparatively speaking. As others have said I would see that Tim can offer for suggestions. Heās been great handling my questions and concerns as I moved over from Iris.
I just changed all devices to smart lighting triggered on mode changes. The routines are now only changing the mode.
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This is what I did, works great so far.
LJ
You will find this works way better over the long term.
I found the same thing when using rule machine. One rule changed the modeā¦ Routine rules triggered by mode changeā¦ It was very very reliable. To bad it got too hot in the kitchen for some folks.
Cause a really great app is quickly become useless.
I just wish smart lighting allowed you to turn on some lights and turn others off. Itās pretty crappy for making routines.
What do you mean by this? It can do this unless I donāt understand the whole picture.
Take my morning routine for exampleā¦
Turn on bedside lamp at 10% for 10 minutes.
Turn on kids sunrise lights at 30%.
Turn on kitchen lights at 50%
Turn on living room lights at 70%
Turn on LR ceiling fan
(Thatās four smart lighting rules so far)
Turn off kids ceiling fans.
Turn off kids fans
Talking alarm clocks for each room
So, at least five smart lighting rulesā¦ And Iām sure Iām missing some stuff.
Ok so it can do it, you just have to create lots of lighting automations. I say itās worth it still.
Oh, Iām going to do itā¦ It sucks, but itās still the best thing going right now.
What sucks is I have nothing at all to move control of my master suite to. That little piece of magic takes 18 complex rules in tile machine, ask intertwined, as well as two virtual override switches and two physical override switches.
Oh you ask why? ? ? ? Simple really.
My wife, my lovely beautiful green eyed red headed Irish wife. My wonderful woman that wants it different every time, never knows what she wants, and by the time she decided what she wants sheās already changed her mind to something new that she doesnāt know about yet.
And how do make that level of crazy hot happy?
Diamonds, lots of big sparkly diamonds and the beach! That and Iām Irish, so Iāve got enough puss and vinegar in my salty sailor blood to deal with it.
Iām just glad sheās not a ginger!
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Iām glad you revived this thread so I didnāt have to. Iāve got a support case open that so far has gotten me no where for more or less this same issue. Short of @JDRobertsā setup, it doesnāt get much simpler than mine. Goodbye simply arms my three Blink cameras (via @RBoyās Blink Camera Manager app) and tries to set SHM-security to Armed (Away) and change the mode to Away. Iām Back does the opposite. Then I have an āAuto-Armā and āAuto-Disarmā routine that does the same thing except SHM-security is set to Armed (Stay) and the ST mode is changed to Sleep and of course Auto-Disarm does the opposite.
Iām so sick and tired of playing around with this that now I just continue to update my support case with near-daily screen caps of things failing. Iāve thought about doubling up on the routines (similar to what @SBDOBRESCU said below to have one do Blink cams (has Blink API calls involved) while the other just does the mode and SHM-security changes. But frankly, I have no clue whether the problem lies with SHM-security or Blink or the platform itself, so Iām not convinced it will do much other than frustrate me further considering my config is very simple.
FWIW, the Blink cams almost always get armed/disarmed correctly and the mobile app will tell me it changed the mode and set the security to armed, but it frequently lies to me on those last two points.
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Iāve been incredibly reluctant to to go to smart lighting and the routines. The routines have been such crap for me from the beginning. To the point that I was not using modes at all. I could never get the modes to change and ST was quickly becoming a huge failure.
And then there was Rule Machine. I pushed to app to the limit as soon as I could and I found the limit. It was the platform, not the app. I quickly figured out to always always always keep the modes separate from everything else. When the modes were mixed into a routine in ST, they had a very high failure rate. When they were mixed in with any kind of a semi-complex rule in rule machine, say 5 or so actions, they mode changes would fail horribly. Maybe this is the part that @slagle @jody.albritton should bring to the attention of their engineers.
Iāve been saying since I started with the platform. The problem is SHM. the core is designed around that concept (this is all my theory, but Iād be money that Iām right) with a little crappy alarm system built in to it. Everything that SHM touches turns to crap. STILL today!!! My system has run damn good for monthsā¦ right after I stopped using SHM, the alarm, and routines. Now look, Iām using routines and my system sucks again! Hello??? ST ??? are you guys listening??? Iām a troubleshooterā¦ itās what I doā¦ Itās what Iāve done for almost 30 yearsā¦ I troubleshoot complex systems because Iām damn good at it!!!
So, anyway, I digressā¦ they arenāt listening and they think theyāve got it all figured outā¦ Which is of course why you and I are the only ones complaining right??? right??? I think this is where we blindly agree.
I removed everything from my routines except for the mode changes. Everything has fired as scheduled since then. But, itās only day one. Iāll keep trackā¦ and Iāll be loud and proud in calling out the crap that is SHM.
My lighting project is a nightmare. I removed over 20 rules from RM last night. I have 47 to goā¦ and I know for a fact that there are at least 25 to 30 of those that can not be supported outside of Rule Machine. (This is the part where I tag @ady624 and beg for a prerelease of CoRE for beta testing).
So, Iām going to make do with what Iāve gotā¦ and Iāll keep pinging on this dead thread because I might as well.
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