Help with RM 4 and Presence

Hello,

I have the garage door plugged into a GE receptacle that gets turned on for 5 mins when either:
Someone arrives home OR
If we are home and a specific door is opened
Currently it's 2 RM 3 rules and I'm trying to combine into one

Here is what I have and is not working, the plug is not turned on when I open the door

Can't seem to get a trigger to be "is present" or similar so I added it to the Else-If

Thoughts on how to make this work?
Rick

I think I got it figured out

Created 2 triggers, one for Presence "changed" and another for the door contact

What I am not able to figure out is I was using virtual switches... to test with, now when I go back to changed to the real devices and I used Edit... it only allows me to add a new "And"

The only way for me to swap out the virtual devices is to start over

Am I missing something?


Rick

I am going to take a shot at this. I normally don't but I too need to learn. In the top pic it looks as if you need to change the second 'changed' to 'present' and maybe remove both of the cancels. ??

I got the top rule working i believe, testing the final version now.

The second pick is my current issue (maybe I should have started a new thread) but I can't swap out the virtual devices (A_V-Light or A_V-Presence) for real ones w/o deleting everything and starting over, so it seems

Rick

@toy4rick I have had to delete a few and start over because if you change them too many times it can corrupt them and they don't work at all.

Yes i have found that to be true as well

In this case, create it once with a VS then try to change it later, can't seem to figure out how

It keep adding "And" to the original If statement

Rick

Your ELSE IF will never be executed.

You start your rule with
IF presence changed

This will always be true as changed includes present and not present. Therefore you will never run into the ELSE IF part

Change your rule to start with
IF presence = not present

And your else if section of the rule will be hit

You're missing the bigger picture. Your trigger is that the presence changed, but your conditional action should be either arrives or leaves. So something like:

Trigger:  Presence changed
Action:
        If:  Presence is Present then
               turn on light
       Else if Presence if not present then.
              turn off light
       End-if

Hey Ryan,

2 issues here (I know, should have started a new thread)

Yes I get the trigger should be "changed" and the action is present or not present...
The other issue was, can't seem to change from virtual devices to real devices w/o deleting everything and starting over

Rick

Is this an "issue"? It sounds like you know what you have to do.

what do you mean? Within the rule itself? That isn't all that easy. But you can select the "Edit action" drop-down menu in the middle and select a different device with the same capability. If you want to change what capability it uses, you have to delete that line of the action and then insert a new line in it's place.

Ryan,

Yes the first issue I resolved very early on.

For the second issue, it's easy to change the trigger to a different device, what I can't seem to change is to using the real device in the if portion of the Actions to Run section

Rick

Okay...do you see the middle drop-down labeled Edit Action??

use that drop-down to edit the action you want to edit. When you do, it will give you the ability to change the device that you are performing the action on. Are you not able to see that?

1 Like

Yes Sir, been using it all day, doesn't work. It appears that once you have an End-If, you can't edit it

As soon as I select to edit the action, all I get is the ability to add an And
Here is a brand new test rule

I then select the "Select Actions to Run" section to edit and I get this, as you noted the Edit Action Option, use the pull down to select the If... statement

Now as you can see, I only have the ability to add an And operator

If I select to "erase expression", it clears everything out and I have to start over

Rick

Yes, you sure can edit after you enter an End If. I've been doing it all day.

Erase expression clears everything out from within that conditional action. But all of your conditions you entered before will be available in the drop-down list. So you just have to select them, not create them again. Which is a LOT faster the second time. How else would you like it to handle the editing of a conditional part of a conditional action? We're lucky we can edit it at all without having to re-do the whole action!!!

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