How do you use modes (revisited)?

[Cobra]

@DarthBob

Any specific reason you use this, other than just making sure it doesn't get too dark in the house?

In the summer.. sometimes sunset -30 is too bright to turn on evening mode
Also if lux is low but it's still the middle of the day (i.e. NOT sunset -30) then I don't want it to change modes (I use another app to temporarily turn on lights)

Andy

[dcaton1220]

I use modes to reflect the alarm system state, which also acts as far more reliable presence indicator than the HE app or the ST app.

Alarm disarmed -> Home
Alarm armed stay -> Night
Alarm armed away -> Away

Outdoor and most indoor lighting is on simple sunset/time based rules.

Some things like the Christmas tree and other indoor lights (kitchen, dining room) are turned off if the status goes to Away and turned back on if the status goes to Home, if the time restrictions are also met (e.g. lights don't come on during the day mode goes from Away -> Home).

[Hatallica]

@DarthBob

A few people have mentioned using illuminance as a factor. Any specific reason you use this

Probably 90% of my home automation is lighting. So, "is it dark?" is the most basic question driving my system.
Sunrise/sunset are not reliable indicators of how our system should behave. At best, I used them as a proxy to estimate whether I thought it should be light/dark.

[DarthBob]

@dcaton1220

I use modes to reflect the alarm system state, which also acts as far more reliable presence indicator than the HE app or the ST app.

Excellent idea. I don't have the alarm system tied in yet (thinking about replacing it - side question: what do you use?).

[jldodge710]

Is anyone using a security monitoring service receiving any type of alert that can be used by Hubitat for other home automation settings?

[dcaton1220]

@DarthBob

Excellent idea. I don't have the alarm system tied in yet (thinking about replacing it - side question: what do you use?).

QolSys IQ2+, There's no external interface to the alarm system, but it does have a built-in z-wave controller, which is rock solid and is what I use for my z-wave HA. It's a great alarm panel BTW; I have one in my home and in a rental property. Highly recommended.

To communicate its state to HE, I use a z-wave+ lamp dimmer and rules set up in alarm.com. If the alarm is disarmed, the dimmer is set to 10%, armed stay 20%, armed away 30%, intrusion alarm 40%, water sensor alarm 50%. There is nothing actually plugged into the lamp dimmer.

Then I have SmartThings paired as a secondary zwave controller to the alarm panel, so it is aware of state changes to the dimmer.

Next, I use HubConnect to sync the lamp dimmer in ST to a virtual dimmer in HE. and finally, a webcore piston that subscribes to state changes in the virtual dimmer and sets the corresponding mode in HE,

Sounds a bit Rube Goldberg, but it works nicely. Wish I could get ST out of the mix, but HE doesn't work as a secondary z-wave controller and I'm giving up hope that it ever will, so I can't retire ST as I had intended when I bought the HE hub

[DarthBob]

@dcaton1220

To communicate its state to HE, I use a z-wave+ lamp dimmer and rules set up in alarm.com. If the alarm is disarmed, the dimmer is set to 10%, armed stay 20%, armed away 30%, intrusion alarm 40%, water sensor alarm 50%. There is nothing actually plugged into the lamp dimmer.

That's clever. Not sure I would've thought of that. Looks to me as if the main downside to that is that if power's up, but the external network is down, you lose your integration. But that can be said for a lot of things.

[dcaton1220]

@DarthBob

That's clever. Not sure I would've thought of that.

I didn't.

When I first set up ST, I was looking for a way to allow my z-wave devices to be controlled by both the alarm panel and ST. I can do most of what I want via alarm.com automation rules, and you can create automation rules based on alarm state changes. But there's no ability for complex AND or OR logic in alarm.com.

So where I need that, I use SmartThings and webcore, since ST works perfectly as a secondary z-wave controller. However, there's no ability to track alarm state changes in ST. A search in the ST forums turned up the idea of using a z-wave device as the bridge between the alarm panel and ST.

I was so hoping to replace ST with HE, but it looks like I'm going to have to keep the ST hub online indefinitely.

@DarthBob

Looks to me as if the main downside to that is that if power's up, but the external network is down, you lose your integration. But that can be said for a lot of things.

Yeah, that's why I had high hopes for HE. If ST is down or is just flaky, then it won't transmit the dimmer state change over to HE. If HE could see the dimmer, then it would all be local.

However, I do not have anything important on my HA system. Anything that must work is controlled through my alarm panel's z-wave controller, which is rock solid. I use ST & HE for convenience automations, not things that have to be 100% reliable. For example, water sensors are monitored by my alarm system.

[SoundersDude]

This is what I do as well:

• Home
• Sleep
• Away
• Vacation

I'd ideally like to incorporate time of day, but the Matrix becomes unwieldy for me.
What would really float my boat is if Modes has sub categories, like "home - morning", Home - afternoon.

[Hatallica]

I already need to change my answer - I just deleted Away. After some consideration, I intend to treat that as a condition and not a distinct mode. I created a boolean global variable and a simple rule that updates whether anyone is present.

I hope to have a reason to create a Vacation mode someday. It's been too long.

[SoundersDude]

@Hatallica

I hope to have a reason to create a Vacation mode someday. It's been too long.

Yeah .... for me "Vacation mode" is now in C19 times really an extended away, not just a run to the grocery store or not. Full on simulate someone is home if it's dark out, turn on all alarms, etc.

[DarthBob]

@neonturbo

Here is my rule. I used the trigger every 3 minutes just as a test for a bug. I really don't have it that way in real life.

How frequently do you run this rule IRL? How frequently can you run a rule without impacting performance?

[neonturbo]

@DarthBob

How frequently do you run this rule IRL?

I think I settled on 7 minutes. But even 3 probably wouldn't be too bad I would think. I isn't like I am running this every 10 milliseconds or something.

@DarthBob

How frequently can you run a rule without impacting performance?

I don't know if there is an answer to that exactly, but when you are talking about a scale of minutes, I doubt very much it will affect anything. Maybe if you were running multiple or dozens of polling rules it might, but I think this is the only one like that with my setup.

[ritchierich]

@SoundersDude

Vacation

Just throwing another idea out there, I have Day, Night, Away, and Cleaning. The first three align with my alarm integration and cleaning turns on the house for cleaning. I went down the path of a Vacation mode but then realized there wasn’t much difference between it and Away. But since many Simple Automation and other apps can disable themselves by a switch I created a virtual vacation switch instead. I have this sync with my Google calendar, not that we are going anywhere these days!

But idea is away is away but then there are some automations that I don’t want to happen when on vacation that is controlled by this virtual switch. I also have a rule that sets my thermostats in away/vacation mode when that vacation switch is turned on and back to schedule when off. This is helpful since the house starts cooling/heating back the day we are returning while keeping house in away mode for security and alerting purposes.

FWIW I don’t use Mode Manager, I use a presence sensor under mattress to change from day to night when both wife and I are in bed (2 separate sensors) and then back to day in morning when wife or I get up. Away is done manually though could be automated, just don’t trust geo presence sensors. Cleaning gets set when my cleaning lady enters her code into the lock.

[SoundersDude]

Very interesting. I guess where I have "away" and "vacation" different is "Away" means our geopresence is gone, so things like lights and heating turn off or down automatically and a few other things. This is common when we go outside or for a walk.

Vacation means "set full alarm".

"Away" for me has to be more liberal given false positives or very short "away" time, and I'm not a fan at all of having my Alarm turn off with Geo fencing.

[ritchierich]

@SoundersDude

This is common when we go outside or for a walk.

Vacation means "set full alarm".

Yep we have same away definition I just don’t use or want house to shutdown if say I need to go to Lowe’s for 20 minutes. Similar outcome but for me less logic and rules with a switch.

Most of my lights turn off automatically anyway based on motion so not a whole lot to turn off with away mode anyway.

Again not knocking the vacation mode idea, this setup just works better for me so just wanted to throw this idea out there. The switch restriction in Simple Automation, Notifications, Motion Lighting, etc made this vacation switch idea very easy to implement.

[DarthBob]

One thing that I'm pondering...it would be nice to have "Home/Away" as separate from the remainder of the modes (Day/Evening/Night, etc). For me, I'm seeing modes as quite handy. But I've got rules that I'd like to execute based on mode when I'm home, others when I'm away, others both.

I'm considering creating a virtual "master" presence sensor tied into my current home/away rule and basing my home/away on that.

[brad5]

I use modes mostly for motion control apps to change the behavior of lights in the evening and at night. I also use modes in conjunction with scenes to adjust lighting (regardless of motion) during certain times of the day.

Predawn - 5am to sunrise+15.
Day - Sunrise+15 to sunset-30
Cloudy - Sunrise+15 to sunset-30 on cloudy days (more lights come on)
Evening - Sunset-30-10pm
Night - 10pm-5am (but can be triggered early when I tell Alexa "goodnight"

[DarthBob]

@ritchierich

FWIW I don’t use Mode Manager, I use a presence sensor under mattress to change from day to night when both wife and I are in bed (2 separate sensors) and then back to day in morning when wife or I get up.

Going back and rereading this - this is an interesting use case. What do you use for a presence sensor?

[ritchierich]

@DarthBob

What do you use for a presence sensor?

@ogiewon's Bed Presence solution:

[Release] HubDuino Bed Occupancy/Presence Sensors

All, I have been wanting to figure out an automatic way of knowing whether or not my wife and I are in bed or not. This would allow for some additional automations, like automating Hubitat Safety Monitor arming at night, automatic path lighting in the middle of the night, notification of sleep walking, etc... This might also be useful for ensuring children are where they are supposed to be Or for knowing if elderly loved ones are following their normal routine. I have added a new Dev…

It does require some skill and comfort with microcontrollers to setup but it has been my wife and I's favorite automation.