So I AM new to HE, and I am slowly building a smaller system, but I just don't see the big news about the new "Room Lighting" app. I am struggling to see what it offers (in practical, real-world scenario terms), that isn't addressed in Basic rules, or Rule Machine, or Motion lighting apps.
That said, maybe it will better address one of my little flaws I have right now.
I have some exterior lights which come on at sunset, very dim (5%), and want to have them go off at sunrise +15 mins. Apparently it will not recognize the sunrise of the next day; The lights remain on.
This is the first phase of a more robust function - once I install motion sensor(s), and/or integrate presence (currently using my mobile phone as a device, but it is not showing presence in a timely enough manner), I will have the lights brighten on motion/presence for xx minutes then go back to 5%. But I still need them to go out at sunrise+15.
Is "Room lighting" the answer for that?
The advantage compared to Rule Machine is that it's easier to configure, and the advantage compared to Basic Rule is that it can do a lot more. (If all you want is to turn on the light with motion, wait for motion to go inactive, and then turn it off, any of these options will work, and Basic Rule would make it pretty easy.)
Compared to Motion Lighting, it's more featured and also include some features from Groups and Scenes. Any instance of these three apps can be imported into Room Lighting, creating a configuration that should behave like before, just offering the additional features Room Lighting offers. If you are happy with your existing setup, there is no reason to change anything.
What app are you having the sunrise problem with now? Sharing that configuration should help. Room Lighting can use sun times (with or without an offset) as a means to turn on or off lights, so that should work for you, and it's possible it could consolidate other lighting apps you might be using for the same lights or room into one app. Some people may prefer that all-in-one approach. But there's no reason that any other option--e.g., a Basic Rule "triggered" at this time--shouldn't either. Perhaps there are hub (time zone, location, etc?) or device issues, or just odd app configuration.
My bad... I am using Rule Machine for my exterior lights at this time. The rule is simply:
Trigger - when time equals sunset, dim exterior lights to 5%
Then - wait for: time is sunrise+15 mins,
Then - dim exterior lights to zero.
But the lights remain, logs show never a call to dim to zero. What I see in other posts, after the wait, it will not recognize sunrise since it cannot occur in the same day.
What logs are you looking at? The best place would be app logs (i.e., for the rule), for which you'd need to enable at least "Action" logging for the rule, though all logging wouldn't hurt. Device logs won't be much help since by default, you'll only see info/descriptionText logging, which tells you what actually happened (which you already know), not what commands may have been sent (e.g., in an attempt to try to put the device in a certain state).
Another thing you can look at: while that "wait for sunrise+15" is pending, take a look at the app status page (gear icon) for the rule, then go down to "Scheduled Jobs" and see what's listed there. Logically, I'd expect a subscription for the next sunrise event (or maybe a pre-calculated time of sunrise+15, but just sunrise and then waiting 15 minutes seems like a more robust solution). Something in the past would, of course, be problematic, but if so, maybe that would explain your issue and is something that could be fixed (unless there's some reason I'm missing about why this might be desirable behavior--and if that is indeed what's happening at all).
OK, so I've ticked all three log categories for the app, and at current, "Past logs" for outside lighting control only show an info entry which is when I set the logging as mentioned.
As for the "Scheduled events" in the app status, it reports "No scheduled jobs are set".
Did you just enable logs now? That, as you likely know, won't affect Past Logs that have already been made, just future Current Logs or Past Logs that will be generated/saved. The logs you are looking for will be for the rule (labeled "app:id," where "id" is the number you see in the URL bar when editing this rule--or you can filter by app/device name using the links at the top of the Logs page). The device logs still will not be of much use.
The scheduled job I mentioned will not be there unless your "Wait..." is currently pending (meaning the rule triggered and you've reached but not passed that point in the actions). If that's not happening, your possibly newly-enabled logs for the rules should give more clues. (Note that hitting "Done" or "Update Rule" will re-initialize the rule, cancelling anything currently scheduled. It would need a retrigger if you were currently waitng on something in the actions. This is no longer necessary to click to save the logging settinhgs, BTW, though it was in the past.) Otherwise, I'd be curious what happens when you do reach that point.
Not necessarily. For your exact same use case, I use Basic Rules. There is no real advantage of trying to accomplish everything with one rule in Rule Machine, Two (or more) Basic Rules are faster to set up, and there isn't a limit of how many rules you can have.
It's generally true with HE there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. This may help explain why someone asking a question gets 47 different answers!
While RM is really powerful it's also a bit of a tough hill to climb for many new users. And let's face it - the UI is not the most elegant I've seen. The advantage of simple rules, basic rules, room lighting, and other apps is one can address quite a few use cases without having to tackle RM.
Lol I know Room Lighting is a brilliant app because of all the people using it and praising it. But it doesn't speak to me at all, I just can't get my head around the UI I think. In another thread someone wanted help and Bruce told them they'd introduced a loop in the logic. Bruce is good at explaining things and I usually understand his explanations but for the life of me I couldn't see this loop.
I think one other thing to add is that Room Lighting is one of the first major uses of Rooms that I can think of, aside from the inclusion in the mobile app. So the app is still finding it's feet I would suggest. There has been gentle encouragement for some time to see Rooms used and this is a big step up by the development team. While there may be some aspects that are not clear or just new concepts, over time these will likely be ironed out, as many have been in Rule Machine and the other rule apps introduced over the last few years.
So if it still feels a bit foreign or doesn't grab you as a solution to your needs, that's ok, it doesn't have to solve all, it's just another very useful tool in our toolkit.
Went with this as it complies with the KISS factor. Works well, and I also added a brighten driveway feature when garage door is opened if lights are >4%. Works great!
