C8
we move to power plan with the power company the from 3pm-7pm (summer) we have 30c/kw hour. all other hours ar 5c
I want to maxisize the reduce power usage.
Making rule for everysignal thing seems very complex.
Is a better approach to make a mode and tie everything to that?
You could make a mode, a Hub Variable or a virtual switch.
For the Hub Variable you would make it as a boolean and then have one rule set it to true when it starts, then have a wait for time, set to false when it ends.
From there you could use that variable in other rules as a trigger or a condition.
You could do basically the same thing with a virtual switch it would just on or off instead.
The advantage of this is if the time period ever changes you only have to edit one rule to adjust it. Also I think it will make other rules easier since you can just check a single state instead of checking if its between the two times.
I like modes because they typically are accessible in all (at least the built-in) apps. It makes it easy to globally change things. You would have to go back through your automations, and select what to do when this new mode is active, but that shouldn't be too hard?
You could probably turn the mode on/off by a Basic Rule, or the new Visual Rules. (You should try Visual Rule if you have not, it is pretty nifty!)
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I see the second rule will turn on the virtual switch at 14:58
Not sure why you have the mode checks in there exactly?
I assume the Off rule is similar but with a different time.
The hot water schedule rule looks like it will turn on the Wash hot water when the virtual switch gets turned on, and then off 4hrs and 5 minutes later. Having the Off (with delay) before the On command in the rule is a little confusing but should still work.
You might want to have the rule use a wait for events, and wait for the power save switch to turn off, and then turn the hot water off (instead of using a delay). Then it would follow your schedule exactly, instead of having a hard coded delay that would need to be adjusted if the saving period changes.
Again, not sure why all the mode checks unless you have some other mode like "Away" mode where you do not want it to run at all.
yes i have an away mode and dont want to auto turn on if we are away. ( the away turns off the hot water if the house is empty)
I will adjust the wash hot water to an event - makes more sense
here is my home rule - i think i did this correctly - one day i will figure out how to make it cool and - have a sub rule like if away has been on more then 24 hours - turn on the hot water lol
edit whoops forgot to delete the first hot water on
If your "Power Save Virtual" is ON is then when your power saving time is active?
If that is correct then I think your rule is backwards, your rule will turn the hot water OFF when power save turns ON, and then turn the hot water ON when power save is over.
Otherwise the Wait for event part looks correct.
You also don't really need the Mode checks within the rule if you have it set as a conditional action, but also not hurting much either. Unless the mode changes while the rule is running, could possibly run the first action but not the second one if the mode changes to one outside of what's in your IF statement.
yes if power save IS on i want the HW OFF - so exit rule
if power save is OFF - HW want on (power save is from 3pm>7pm our electr rat fomr 3-7 is 30c kwh and all other times only 5c lol
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Ok makes sense now, Power Save ON = power is more expensive so you want to turn things off (to save power).
yes sir - thank you - im left handed so i guess do stuff backwards lol
@jtp10181
Ifi may ask really fast :
I didn't know the "wait for event" was a thing - is this a valid way for auto-relock ?
i have been struggling with timers and retry to lock the door lol this seems much easier
Yes that should work, unless the door is unlocked but never opened.
I would actually suggest this app, it is what I am using and it has tons of options. It can be a little dauting to setup as first but once you figure out the style of the UI it makes sense.
@jtp10181 thank you checking out that app now and yes its alot of setup (needs a clone feature)
one other question - is there away to have a date range ? for example SUMMER hours 1JUN to 30sep
SO i would like this rulle to activa only during that time range
i also updated the rule for this and removed the mode as you suggested
Sorry I think I got mixed up and I thought you had a required expression AND the IF check in the rule. The position that the "conditions" show in the rule always make me think its a required expression. If you want to block the switch from getting flipped during certain modes you could add that as a Required expressions, to prevent the rule from running at all.
I think you could do a required expression for a specific time and it should have an option to add a date, might be able to do greater than one date and less than the other maybe? I would have to dig in there and check it out myself later, its not something I have ever done.
ill see if i can find i know under perodict i could find an option that seemed like it would work
i don't know if this is the correct way or if this will even work ?
ps i am not a programmer - i am "just push buttons till works" type lol
I don't want to upset the flow, so ignore me if you want, but is A/C involved? I'd think that could be the biggest summer load, considering the rate structure. How does the powersave virtual switch fit in with a thermostat? I guess you could shut down the system for 4 hours with a relay, but it could get hot. I'm not familiar with thermostat integration, but I did have the Ecobee running for a while.
Anyway, sorry for any interruption, but it seemed like you were pretty far along, and I was just curious about implementation for A/C.
Based on your info above 3-7PM for summer and your last rule showing you only want it M-F this is how I would do it. Instead of making a separate On and Off rule you can Do On/Off in the same rule but split it into a summer rule vs a Winter rule to be able to deal with the different time ranges.
SO here would be a summer rule could be copied for Winter, just edit the dates and times.
The Req Expression makes it so the rule can only trigger when those are true. So only during the date range set and also only on M-F. Then when that is true the trigger will work, so...
Every M-F in that date range, at 3PM the rule will trigger.
Turn on Switch
Wait until 7PM
Turn off Switch
EDIT: Have an idea for a single rule to do it all, will follow up
