Changing time for rules

šŸ“ Rule MachineĀ® All things Rule Machine
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1

Okay,
I'm guessing this is a niche topic but maybe it'll help others. For years I've had 6 rules for 3 motion sensors controlling 3 separate rooms. Each rule had lights come on at either 100% during the day or 1% at night. For the longest time day was 6:00AM to 11:59PM and Night was 12:00AM to 5:59AM. When I started morning classes I moved it so it was 5:00AM to 9:59PM and 10:00PM to 4:59AM. Then, when those classes ended I chose to move back to the first set of times. It's taken me a couple weeks to realize one of the night rules was 6:00AM to 9:59PM and morning was 12:00AM to 5:59AM, leaving a 2hr gap. I finally figured out my error after replacing batteries, removing the sensor and adding it back. I only discovered the error when I was trying to be sure the sensor, given the same name it had before, was connected to the prior rules.

So, My question is this; is there a simpler way. I'll admit my rules are in the legacy version of RM. I don't know if I need the 1min gap in the times but that's rarely an issue so I don't worry. As I want my Livingroom, Kitchen and Bathroom controlled separately I know I need different rules for them. I'd really like to be able to change "Day" and "Night" in one place vs several but I know the rule has it's own time spots so I don't see a chance for a variable like Day being used.

Hopefully others have some input.

2

Not with Legacy RM, but you could use Hub Variables for the times. Then, changing the times in the rules is done just by changing the appropriate variable.

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Would I just need to rewrite the rules in the updated rule machine? Also where do I make hub variables?

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Hub variables are under Settings.

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Another rabbit hole to go down is looking into Modes if you havenā€™t already done so.

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I would think that using Modes with Mode Manager would make things fairly simple for you. Mode Manager has a time table to automatically set the Modes. If you rules were based on Modes (i.e. Day equals 100% and Night equals 1%), any time you changed the time table in Mode Manager, it would update all rules to the new times.

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You don't want a 1 minute gap in your rules. Time between 6:00 AM to 12:00 AM is evaluated as true between 6:00.000 AM and 11:59.999 PM.

Just to add for completeness, Time is 6:00 AM is evaluated as true between 6:00.000 AM and 6:00.999 AM.