Is there a way to create this into a single Room Lighting rule? (Yes, I write my rules in Notepad before making them lol).
Means to Turn On: Stair Motion Sensor becomes Active Vary Light Settings Per Mode: Day: Office Flush Mount, Basement Fireplace Can Lights, Office Ceiling Fan Light, and Office Lights Evening: Turn on Guest Hallway & Office Flush Mount
Means to Turn Off:
When Stair Motion Sensor AND Office Presence Sensor are Inactive, turn off all, but Guest Hallway light.
When Stair Motion Sensor is Inactive, turn off Guest Hallway light.
I think I can do it all EXCEPT for Turning Off the Guest Hallway light. That, I'm struggling with since I do want it to Turn Off even if we are working. This light is really just for going to/from the laundry room, which I multi-task to do while WFH. Should I just make the Guest Hallway Light be a separate rule all together? It would be such a simple Basic Rule.
Not really since there are two different Means to Turn Off. I would move the Guest Hallway Light into its own Room Lighting instance or create a Vacancy Room Lighting for that light.
If you wanted to use Rule Machine, this can be done as one rule.
Yeah, I find myself more & more just using RL as group/scene activators that get managed via RM rules.
I don't doubt I could probably accomplish some/much of those goals via RL alone, but I still find RL pretty intimidating for managing anything beyond very vanilla. Old dog, new tricks yadda yadda
Sometimes simpler is better. If it takes 3 simple rules instead of one overly complex one, then do what is easy. I think Bruce would even say that.
RL does have so many options it can be intimidating, and I can never remember how all these options interact with each other. I start small, and start adding options until it works how I want it to. As the old saying goes, the beatings will continue until morale improves, and that is how I treat Room Lighting, I beat it into submission (unless it beats me first!).
Haha yeah I just ended up making 3 different Room Lighting rules:
A group/scene of my Office Lights controlled by 2 different switches. I created an Activator Device for this.
The motion lighting specifically for the Office Lights that calls the Activator Device made in 1 with the Day & Evening modes. Only turns on weekdays. I still need to implement the Google Calendar so it doesn't turn on holidays.
The motion lighting for the "Basement Hall" that turns on / off in the evening.
I am glad it isn't just me. I tried RL but I found that just creating groups in Groups and Scenes then using either Basic Rules or Rule Machine seemed to work much better for me. It may have resulted in a couple extra simple rules I could skirt around if I used RL but it to me is just easier for the other apps.
I can never remember what the difference between limit & disable are so I always have to test a combination of those 3 options to see which one I should be using lol. I do like that it’s all in one page, but yeah, I think the terminology trips me up every time.
I view limit and disable as their equivalents in Rule Machine:
Disable = Required Expression being False
Limit = Conditional Trigger being False
Basically, if you use Disable, Room Lighting will not subscribe to any of the Means to Activate/Turn Off until it gets re-enabled. This acts similar to Required Expressions in Rule Machine.
With limiting, Room Lighting acknowledges the Means to Activate/Turn Off but does not act because of the limit being true. This is similar to a conditional trigger in Rule Machine where the rule acknowledges the trigger, but will not do any actions if the conditional is false.
Yes, they trip me up constantly. I really have a hard time with RL. I guess my mind just has a hard time getting wired correctly. RM follows more like PLC logic in equipment controls so my mind processes it better so I find myself using RM 80% of the time for everything.
I agree this is the best explanation I've seen so far! I think most of us a more familiar with Rule Machine and relating it to that makes it easier to understand for me at least.
