I'm still in transition from using ISY/INSTEON to HE so I'm still learning about RM and Mode.
My question is how do most experienced HE users handle Christmas and Vacation. Do you just use rules in RM or do you create a Mode?
I have a mode for Vacation, for holidays I have a virtual switch that I use as the indicator. That way I can combine my other modes with it. For example, Mode: Home, Holiday On, turn on Christmas Tree. If you really want to get granular I had some previous work I have done for other sites that look like this on top of the vacation mode and holiday flags.
I haven't setup an away mode yet but I do have special conditions for holidays. I wrote a custom app for my exterior lighting. It could have been done in RM but it was getting a bit bulky.
The app handles the dusk to dawn lighting as well as the motion triggered security lighting. I have added a global variable that when it is set to a holiday (Christmas, Halloween, etc.) it overrides the dusk to dawn lighting. Instead of turning on a few warm white lights it turns them all on in holiday colors. For Halloween they are Orange and Purple, Christmas is Red and Green, etc.
I manually set the holiday variable but this could easily be automated too. I just haven't gotten to it yet.
Otherwise I use the modes to handle lighting levels and color temperatures indoors.
I don't do a mode for vacation. The way my lights are set up, it looks like we're home when we're not anyway. I have the outside lights turn on and off at certain times, and a table lamp turn on to light the front window. We're usually in the basement living room, so I have these lights turn on so that the upstairs isn't dark all the time.
