I have set up Mode Manager after the previous Hubitat Live and set it to start automatically switching Mode.
For Vacation... I have a few rules that run (switching lights on/off to simulate someone home etc...) and I had a VR Switch to trigger these.. so I could tell Alexa to turn on/off the Vacation switch and would also get a verbal confirmation back from her.
I want to use this switch to go in and out of Vacation in Mode manager now, so I can drive other rules more easily off the mode.
Before I had the mode manager schedule set up, the above trigger would also set the mode to Day when the switch was turned off... and it would stay in Day until the next time Vacation was used... (Day mode wasn't, and still isn't yet, driving anything)
There are 2 things I am trying to sort out.
Have the VR Vacation Switch turn 'Vacation Mode' on and off. The on it will do, but the off is the challenge... because...
In order to turn Vacation off, another mode needs to go on... so is there a way to have Vacation Mode act like Away mode, so when it turns off it resumes the mode dictated by the time of day schedule?
There are probably dozens of ways to do this. But this is how I handle it.
I have 4 modes: Home, Evening, Asleep, and Vacation.
I trigger Vacation via a switch — Switch - Vacation. When I arrive back home, Home Mode is triggered by Mode Manager. The below is a snip from the rule that runs every time Home Mode starts, whether it's because I've arrived back after Vacation or Away, or because I just woke up.
Basically, if Vacation is active, it gets turned off. Then the rule checks to see if this should actually be Evening instead of Home. If so, then Evening Mode is triggered and the rule exits. If not, then the Home part of the rule continues after the part I've shown.
In the page for "Set mode with switches", use the switch that ends Vacation Mode to "Use Time settings to Return from Away" (you have to turn on that option). That will set the mode based on what time it is when that switch turns off, even though you aren't actually coming from Away mode. On the page for "Set mode based on time of day" add Vacation mode at the bottom for "Select modes to ignore time changes".
But is this what your saying.?.. Then when Vacation Switch goes Off, We will 'Return from Away' which will then set mode based on the Time of Day settings... (I do have it set to ignore Vacation mode for time changes)
And If I want to start using Away Mode properly I can have multiple switches to trigger 'return from away mode' Excellent.
Many Thanks!!!
I have been work from home for the past several years, so the modes in Hubitat and Ecobee etc... haven't really been used.
Starting a new Job in 2 weeks, and will be commuting on a 9-5 and want to start using more of these mode automations and 'away' settings in such devices.
I tried that a while back and it didn't work exactly the way I wanted — maybe because Evening is the only mode I use that's triggered via time? Don't know. Anyway I didn't feel like taking time to trouble shoot it, so I just added it into rules I already had running anyway.
Yeah, there's an assumption that Mode Manager is managing your time based modes. None of this works unless that's true. The base model starts with time based modes, then layers in Away driven by presence, buttons, or switches. Then, one can have other modes that act the same way that Away does (i.e., ignoring time changes that would otherwise set mode, and then setting the mode upon return to what it would be had you not gone away).
