What Modes have you created?

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Newbie here, got CoRE and WebCore configured and ready to start configuring automation in my home. First set are lights/switches based on time of day and presence. It feels like I should try to lock down my Mode states before creating routines so I’m looking for best practice. The most thorough thread I found on Modes was from 2012. I think my search skills are atrophying…

Can you point me to a thread discussing this topic? Or we can kick it off here. From what I’ve seen the needs vary based on local conditions-but I’m looking for some examples I can steal from to get me started.

Thanks!

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Here are some of my modes as examples:

  • Home (when someone is home)
  • Away (when nobody is home, e.g. turn on alarm to AWAY)
  • Night (at night e.g. turn on alarm to STAY)
  • Guest Visiting (like home mode but Away does not activate - for people without presence sensor staying more than one day)
  • Nanny (like home but Away do not activate, resets to Home at midnight, for people without presence sensor leaving before midnight)
  • Vacation (when nobody is home for an extended period)
  • On the way (similar to away but when coming back from vacation to get home ready for arrival e.g. heat/cool home)
  • Alarm (when the smoke alarm has been triggered)

…and I think you are right, it is a good idea to think about your modes before you set up the routines. It will save you some re-work later.

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Some folks use modes extensively and some don’t. My system is based around my modes.

Morning - wakes up the kids on school days, sets climate downstairs and posters the downstairs for morning routines. Upstairs remain mostly subdued.

Day - night time devices are shut down, upstairs climate adjusted for no person’s, lights come on at 100%. Lights change color from soft white to daylight white.

Evening - upstairs adjust climate for people being up there, lights come on at a lower level in some places, and as it gets darker outside more lights turn on and are brighter.

Night - a lot like evening but the rest of the lights go to warm white.

Late night - climate adjust in bedrooms for kids going to bed and getting ready for bed.

Sleep - this is set manually and shuts down the house for the family sleeping.

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The following thread has some examples from different members:

And although the following FAQ is about routines, it also includes a lot of discussion of modes:

At our house, one of the most useful modes has been “asleep.” That means I’m asleep which could be really any time of the day, I have a very irregular schedule. If the house is in asleep mode, I’m home, but there are a number of things that I don’t want to have happen or they would wake me up.

For a few months we even had two of these, one for asleep during the day and one for asleep at night but eventually we realized we only needed the one.

I know there are several other members who have a similar mode for “baby sleeping” for similar reasons.

But different households will use modes very differently. A lot depends on whether it feels natural to you – – if you have to keep looking up what the different modes mean, then you should probably use fewer of them! :sunglasses:

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I read through those threads and what is interesting is that most people want the concept of wake/home/day/evening/sleep but achieve it differently. Some use modes to track times of day rather than just the default home/away and others seem to use routines based on time to do the same. What was discussed in the 2012 threads that I didn’t see here was people writing that they needed Away-Day, Away-Night, Home-Day, Home-night as modes.

I have kids, pets but no alarm system so my best practice will be different than many. I think I’ll grab a notebook and write out the automations I want to see and try to work out from that how to approach modes.

As an excercise I’ll write down what I’m guessing I’ll end up with now. Will update later. Wake/Morning, Day, Night, Sleep, Away, Vacation, Guest

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Oh yeah… I forgot about WeekEnd Day mode. I do not run morning mode on the weekends and instead of Day mode I run Weekend Day mode…

It’s all about the routines of the people in the house. I have 10 residents in my house… so, it’s crazy.

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I also wanted to mention that up until summer 2016 people would set up really complex structures with as many as 30 different modes to try and capture all kinds of different events like who was home and who was away when there are multiple people in a household, and if it was a holiday and if the kid was sick and all kinds of complications. Modes were used for this because it was one of the only ways that the account holder could store information to create stacked conditionals (if a then B unless C but only if D).

However, now that webcore is available, most people find that they can use many fewer modes than they used to because they can do all of that if/then/else logic just in Webcore itself. They don’t need a mode to store the value.

So now modes are being used much more as they were originally envisioned, just for those big brushstroke situations that are much more logical to use and remember. :sunglasses:

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I just got into a mode conflict last week.

I have one mode that is Away-Day which does a few things in my system. It gets triggered when we all leave for the day.

I also have a Maid Service mode. Lock Manager only sends the maid code to the front door lock when that mode is enabled. It enables at a certain time on a certain day. And if the system goes out of Maid Service mode, the maid code is deleted from the lock.

I found out that if the last person leaves after Maid Service mode kicks in, then Away-Day mode kicks in instead. And therefore, the maid code gets deleted from the front lock!

I cured it by telling the routine that sets Away-Day mode NOT to set that mode if the system is already in Maid Service mode.

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