Agreed, new features are good, whether they improve my life or those here on the Community or expand the user-base by making the entry to hone automation that much easier. There's been various calls for improvements in the creation of rules and I think it's a credit to the team they have taken that challenge on, in amongst all the other great features we have seen over the last 12-18 months.
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I guess I'm an odd duck, but I look forward to creating these new hub variables and then editing my old rules to use them. I don't know why anyone would recreate a rule from scratch when editing has been made so robust in the last few updates.
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I believe it is a new version of RM. We will not be able to edit an old RM rule and add the new variables to the rules. We will need to recreate the rule in the new RM 4.2 (RM 5.0?)
Edit: I COULD be wrong. 
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Well color me super odd, but that sounds great. Every time I've re-written my rules (I've lost two hubs to lightning strikes; sucks to live in Florida sometimes) every time, my rules get more stream lined, smarter, and better tuned to our routines. Home Automation is my hobby, I'm an addict, my name is Michael.
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I read that and thought of wandering around Radio Shack in the day when I was OK with tinkering and redoing something more than once because, well, we expected less.
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Oh no another Radio Shack expat. Now we just have to web site hop to find gadgets. When I lived in Michigan my favorite store was a private electronics store with a ham radio floor with all the goodies.
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I'm really confused.. if these new variables and connectors are supposed to be accessible to other apps.. why wouldn't they be usable by RM 4.1? Since they'll be in the "database" whatever that means, won't they appear as a device? I'm thinking my initial take is correct, we'll just need to edit rules to access the new variable type. Either way I've barely had anything to play with in months, I'm looking forward to the next release drop date.
They would be usable by RM. Why do you think they will not?
However, any existing rules that use local or global variables would have to be edited to use the hub variables, if one chooses to do so. Otherwise the rule will continue to work exactly as it currently does.
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Where did you draw this conclusion from?
Even if it is a new version of RM (which AFAIK wasnât announced), @bravenel has always maintained compatibility with with rules created using older versions of RM, including editing them. Going back at least as far as Rule 2.5,
From listening to the Hubitat live and from what @bruce has stated about RM 4.1 not going away, I assume the access to the new global variables will be a new version of RM.
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Rule-4.1's concept of variables is all caught up in the existing global/local variable structure currently in place. Changing that would require a formidable effort, and would break backwards compatibility. As usual what happens when faced with this issue of breaking backwards compatibility, we move to a new version of the app (e.g., what happened when Rule-4.1 superseded Rule-4.0 due to backwards compatibility issues).
The thing to bear in mind is that people have automations running with Rule-4.1, and we can't just trash all of those. So if a change would do that, it's a no-go; hence a new version of Rule.
So you can expect a new version of Rule for sure. But there is much more to the story than this, and it's all still under development at this time. Suffice it to say that the platform moves forward... We do it in a way that generally doesn't break things that are in use.
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Hub Variables Does look brilliant, Iâll be using this for sure!
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I think your approach is probably the best.
Just a thought, would it be possible to clone a 4.1 rule to a newer 4.2 one and edit that? Or is that not possible also?
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Thanks for the insight. However the final implementation. I like where this is going.
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Frankly,
I was most excited on the announcement that they are putting more focus on user interface. This has been my biggest sticking point with HE. And I have switched back to smartthings a couple of time over the years simply because of the interface. Luckily, HE has more functionality, so I have always ended up returning. But, the user interface really needs simplified.
Rooms was the most immediate impact I have seen. For the first time EVER with HE. My wife actually used the APP to turn a light on. Such a simple thing. One small step!
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Honestly, if your family need an app to turn on lights, then I'd suggest you have missed the point of home automation. HA is supposed to make things easier, not harder.
Replacing a light switch with an app is not making things easier.
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If you are upstairs, and in bed, and need to turn a light off downstairs? Thatâs an app thing for a light you donât want to automate.
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What about voice control? Via Alexa, or Google Home, or Siri (via Homebridge)?
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This!
Also use motion sensors to turn on/off lights for highly trafficked areas rooms like Kitchens, Dinning rooms and hallways / entryways and automate them with the Motion Lighting app.
You can also use modes to trigger automation eg:
Night mode: I use Siri/Alexa to turn on night mode. Then automations turn off most of the lights in the house, lock the doors and turn on our master bedroom lamps.
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Agree with what @dJOS and @stephen_nutt have mentioned. Everyone has different goals. But your example can easily be automated and something I did years ago on SmartThings. I had minimotes bedside that I would push a button to shut off all lights if on, lock locks if unlocked, and close garage if open. Peace of mind honestly and less stress for me to physically check these things or navigate through an app. Since being on HE minimote changed to a Lutron Pico but now I donât even use that as much because I have a pressure sensor under both sides of my mattress that automated things based on wife and I being in bed and time of day. Again to each their own on what they want to automate but just giving you ideas on whatâs possible.
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