I have been using Mode Manager with great success since the time issues have been resolved.
I would really like to see Mode Manager developed to be aware of days of week as well. I am currently achieving this by a series of rules; however, it would be much simpler for Mode Manager to handle this.
Use Cases:
Mode (for primary residence): Work Day (wife works from home) - 8am - 5pm M-F
Mode (for 2nd home) Cabin Day, day mode for Sat and Sun (the only days we use the cabin)
Mode (for primary residence): At Cabin (weekends when at cabin)
Additionally, the ability to maintain a special days calendar (could include holidays or no-school days).
Aha. So you have to setup weekday evening and weekday night modes to use the new commands. There isn’t an option to just have varied times depending on day for the same mode. That’s fair, but slightly more awkward for routines that are tied to modes.
I tried combining presence and time shifts for mode but found it didn’t work properly, so I just used presence with time constraints as requirements for mode changes. It’d be great to be able to have the same “on these days” option within the presence settings.
I linked my mode manager full page. Download it maybe to view? I have a hover-over plugin that shows it full screen on my portrait monitor, but I realize that’s not how everyone has it setup.
So you want certain presence sensors leaving, for example, on some days to set a mode, but on other days other presence sensors leaving setting that mode, or not at all?
Let me give a usage case. I want to set “night” mode at 10pm on Sun-Thurs night, and at 11 pm on Fri-Sat night. Same for adjusting “Day” on Sat-Sun morning. I was having problems with away mode reliably switching back to home/evening/night when I just had presence tied to away mode, so I switched to combining presence and time for each mode change.
I think I’m missing a logic step here. Presence sensors leaving sets Away mode. To return to Day, Evening, or Night mode from Away, I also need to set presence sensor return, right?
If I just use Time to set modes, they will only trigger if that time happens while not in Away mode. So I have to use both time and presence to trigger modes when returning home. In the presence settings, time of day doesn’t include mon-sun options. Is that clearer?
Oh, I see now what you are talking about -- that the time you can set for presence also include day of week, so that the mode that gets set upon return is not the same for every day. Right?
If so, I will look at how crazy that would be to add. I get concerned about UI complexity. Perhaps one way to do it would be for an option that says "use times set for mode", as an alternative to specifying the time window.
The use-times option is appealing for its ui simplicity. Right now when the time for a mode change fires (based on days of week and specified time), if mode is Away, it just exits and does nothing. The simple fix here would be to keep a shadow mode instead – it would be Day now but for it being Away, without changing from Away. Then when presence arrives, with the use-times option set, it makes mode be the shadow mode.
I’d add something like “Set Mode for returning from Away based upon Time settings” – just as a toggle at the top of the presence setting section.
I like that. It solves a knotty problem that everyone has, including me. It’s actually better than fussing with the times for presence setting of modes.
