I have the problem that when a color animation is triggered to turn OFF via the connector, it continues to cycle through the animation until the last step before it finally stops.
It is quite problematic when I'm trying to switch between a running animation and a static scene via a rule triggered by another event. When the event triggers, I turn off the connector but the animation does NOT stop immediately.
Is there any way to interrupt an animation and make it stop immediately when the connector is turned off?
Am I just missing something? I'm surprised in all my search I've not found anyone else complain about this.
It might help to post some screenshots of the rules / automations you have setup so others can see what you are trying to do.
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Here is my color animation. It has 4 color at 5 seconds each.
Forget about the rules, if I just manually toggle the associated connector (the automatically created device called "Christmas at the Bar connector" to OFF, for instance when in the RED step, then it will continue to cycle through yellow, green and blue and finally after the 5 seconds of blue, the last step in the animation before it re-starts, it will turn off. That can be as much as 20 seconds from when the connector was switched off to when the light actually turned off. I should note that when I toggle the connector to OFF it immediately reflects its switch state as OFF, but the animation is still running.
FWIW the lights are a Phillips Hue White and Color light strip, but I don't think that is really relevant. I want to understand if this is the same behavior others experience with the Color Animations.
I have a suspicion that it is how the app works, so my next question is going to be whether the app can be updated to stop the animation immediately when the connector turns it off.
Ok, you will need to excuse my ignorance... but what App are you using? Is it a built-in App or a Community developed one? My guess is a built-in one given the use of the table-layout, though not exclusive to built-in Apps I expect.
Correct I am using the built-in “Color Animation” app.
I'm pretty sure this is by design that the color animation finishes its cycle when the connector is turned off. This app is basically a simplified version of creating the animation in Rule Machine. In Rule Machine, this would be created with a Repeat Until Switch turns off and the behavior would still act the same. The cycle would complete before moving onto other actions in the Rule. If someone was using Rule Machine for the color animation, the second rule (when activated) could cancel the first rule as its initial action.
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I would argue that the Color Animations app should have an option to be interrupted for use cases such as mine or perhaps others. Another less ideal option would be for the Color Animation app to check the connector state between each step and stop if its off.
Alternatively, is it possible for the Rule Machine to cancel the action of the Color Animations before switching it off via the connector? I mean in a similar manner that a rule could cancel another rule. Though I'm not clear if what you describe (a second rule cancelling the first rule) would act asynchronously and stop the first rule regardless of where it is in its cycle. If it does work that way, my other options could be to implement the color animation in the rule machine instead of in the Color Animations app, but that does seem counter-intuitive.
Color Animations is intentionally very basic. It's designed for folks who want their lights to cycle through some colors. On at sunset, off at 10pm with users not worrying about anything else during that timespan. What you are suggesting is adding complexity to an app that was not designed for it.
That's not quite what I said. Everything that can be done by the Color Animations app can be recreated in Rule Machine. If you go that direction, then it opens up the type of complexity that you are desiring. Rule 1 controls the light changing in the same way that Color Animations does. Rule 2 controls the static scene and has the ability to cancel Rule 1. This would give you the control and automation that you want.
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Thanks @JB10. Yes, I understand. I was just exploring if it might be a simpler solution to bake in the ability to cancel a Color Animation run via the Rule Machine. I guess if the Color Animations app is intended to stay basic as is, then I will implement my desired functionality in Rule Machine. I just thought the idea of having the Color Animations App to manage color sequences with an automatically created virtual switch is a pretty neat way to do such things. But alas, as we all know, easy is rarely better 
Thanks again for your feedback, much appreciated.
