I am using "Routine" in the manner used by Amazon Echo, but this is something I want to set up in Hubitat. Here goes:
The Situation I am moving several Routines off of Amazon and over to Hubitat now that most of what I have is able to run locally. I have Routines for starting my day, and for evening shutdown that I want to move. These are on a specific-time schedule. I have virtually the same routines duplicated but instead of fixed times, they are voice activated. "Alexa, good morning" does the exact same thing as the Routine that starts at 6:45 anyway, as I am often up early.
At this time, I am using EcoBee's own canned schedules of Home and Sleep and of course they are set for particular time blocks that more or less match up with the routines.
What I Want to Do In addition to moving the routines off of Amazon and to local control, I want to control my EcoBee in this manner: I presently have Sleep settings starting at 11:30pm, Home comes on at 6:30. I would like to make it so that, say, I go to bed at 10:00, I can run my bed time routine to ALSO move the EcoBee to the Sleep settings, rather than wait. Same with waking: say I am up at 5AM, my "good morning" routine moves the EcoBee to the Home settings despite being 90 minutes early.
The Question I can think of two ways to do this, and this is the advice I am seeking.
Assuming the EcoBee built in app will allow me to call up the schedules already built into the stat, I can do that, or...
Remove the settings in EcoBee entirely, and turn it all over to Hubitat, and just set temps from within the routine.
Sorry for the James Mitchener size entry here, but I wanted everything presented.
I think the built-in ecobee integration will allow you to set away or resume programming but not adjust the schedules. However, you can probably accomplish the same thing just by adjusting the heating or cooling set points. That's what I do. That way if the integration craps out (it is cloud based) or HE takes a sabbatical, ecobee continues to chug away.
There is a community-supported ecobee integration that may have more flexibility but I find the built-in one sufficient for my limited needs.
I set my Ecobee to have a regular schedule using the three default Comfort Settings, plus one I made (since I work from home): Home, All Home, Away Sleep
I use the Ecobee Suite Manager to control my Ecobee from Hubitat, then I use webCoRE (but you can use your favorite rule maker) to set the Comfort Settings for my special cases. For example, it will immediately put Ecobee into Away when we leave, resume program when we return and All Home when my wife arrives home from work whenever she arrives (slightly warmer in the winter).
I read it many years ago, but I think it's best to let Ecobee run its own program then change it with Hubitat when you want something different. That way you're not relying on the cloud connection to ensure something gets set. At worst, it keeps running the programs like it should and if there's a hiccup in the cloud you don't get marked away immediately. Not the end of the world.
A couple of the posts above refer to Ecobee integrations. But I think you are looking for suggestions for how to change a default Ecobee schedule when you need to (e.g. going to bed early after a hard day watching football ).
My suggestion is to use a switch (or set of switches) that are programmed to send new instructions to your Ecobee. Some people use button devices. I'm working with virtual switches for similar reasons.
Since I'm a beginner at this stuff, let me try to explain in simple terms - in case it helps. I suggest you start with virtual switches. (They are free!) When, for example, you want to set your Ecobee to run your night setpoints at 10:00 instead of the usual 11:30, just change the switch state from off to on. You can set up a dashboard with any number of switches, just click and the virtual switch will turn on.
Then, create an automation that is triggered when the switch is on. Set reasonable conditions (e.g. time must be between 8:00 PM and 11:30 PM). If the switch is on, you can use the official Ecobee integration to set cool/heat/auto mode and temperature. #Aside - please configure your Ecobee Hold Duration to "until the next scheduled activity." It is in the Device Setting of the Ecobee app.#
Make sure to change the switch state to "off" at 11:30 PM so that things run normally the next day.
If you decide to try this approach and need help with virtual switches, let us know. They are easy to set up in Hubitat.
After you get things working the way you like, you might want to get creative and trigger your virtual switch without using your phone/tablet/computer. Could be a simple motion sensor, or a pressure sensor under the bed, or even a physical button on the nightstand. This community has lots of creative ideas. But I'd get a simple automation running first to start.
I will use your note as a chance to reply to all. Thanks, everyone! As for the ecoBee suite, I am not yet brave enough to try anyone's code. At least not if I can find a means to do what I want to do, and I think I have.
You'll just need to make sure your Ecobee's "Hold Duration" setting is set to expire automatically or it will be stuck in that program until you manually cancel it.
I would recommend against this, but that's just me.
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