Hey everyone, I was wondering if anybody knows of an app or could help me figure out how to easily set a one time auto off rule for a device.
I have seen auto off apps available, but most seem to be set up to repeat.
I currently have my pool filter turn on/off at set times daily. If I want to run the pump outside of these hours (shocking the pool overnight), it would be nice to be able to manually turn the pump on and quickly set a " after "x" time has passed, turn off pump. Once the pump turns off, revert back to the original on/off rule.
I hope that makes sense what I am trying to accomplish.
Have a similar situation. Just make another rule that allows you to press a button (contact with auto-off virtual device) which triggers a rule that runs the pump for one minute then turns it off. Your scheduled rule will continue to run on its own schedule as an independent rule. I do this if I need to top off charging some SLA batteries and it seems to work just fine. It should not interfere with your set schedule.
There's a 3rd party app named auto off that will do what you need or just write a rule to turn it off after x minutes. Just remember if this app/rule has a time < any of your daily schedules those will turn off early so make the duration greater than your schedule.
In order to prevent your unscheduled switch from prematurely turning off your scheduled switch, you can set a condition where if your scheduled switch is on, then your “impromptu” switch will not turn off the switch (it will be turned off by your scheduled switch).
TBH, I have not done this with my battery charging programs since if the scheduled timer is already on, I have no need to turn on my “impromptu” timer. However, I can see if you decide to turn on the pump, and it overlaps with your normally scheduled pump run, you may not wish for the pump to prematurely turn off before it is normally scheduled to. Either way, you can use IF-THEN and ELSE IF-THEN conditional logic in RM. IF your primary schedule rule is running (indicated by another virtual switch), THEN your “impromptu” switch rule does not turn off the pump. ELSE IF the primary schedule rule is not running, then after your set period of time, your “impromptu” switch rule turns off your pump. IOW, set up a virtual switch in the primary rule to indicate to your “impromptu” switch rule that the primary rule schedule is running.
I am not familiar with the Auto-off App and I tend to work out most of my rule logic in Rule Machine rules. I know many others tend to/like to use a multitude of different Apps in combination to achieve various tasks, but I may be in the minority in preferring RM for most of my rules since that way the and format is consistent among my various rules (for me, and this is JMHO, it makes trouble shooting much easier for me, rather than having to memorize a multitude of several rules and rule structures). Hope this helps but I understand YMMV and your preferences in how you wish to approach your use case will also vary. The great thing about HE is that there are many ways to “skin the cat”. BTW, welcome to the community.
