I'm trying to get my head around the mental model I should be using with Modes.
Here is the challenge that I'm having; I'm hoping someone can help me.
I started by having the mode manager cycle through the days based on sunrise and sunset. This worked great. I then added (with the help of the new app) automatically turn to away based on my phone leaving. This, in turn, arms the place. So far so good. However, now I want to return (again based on my phone) and boom -- I need to pick a mode (day, evening, night).
Is there an easy way to do this?
I guess where I'm struggling is how I would think about all these things is different than home Habitat thinks about these things... Given my druthers I think that Day, Evening, and Night should always be "Day, Evening, and Night" and "away" should be something completely different. This would allow for a "Day Away", a "Night Away", and and "Evening Away"...
I guess I'm just struggling with the overlaps between time (day, evening, and night), presence (home/away), and armed (armed/disarmed). Does anyone have a simple explanation?
I use morning, afternoon, evening & night for modes
BUT for home/away I use virtual switches, that way you can still be in the afternoon mode but at home or away
I then restrict apps etc on both modes and whether Iām home or away.
This is what I do. I have four modes: Home, Evening, Asleep, and Away. Home, Evening, and Asleep apply when I'm actually at home. And Away is only when I'm away. In Mode Manager, I set modes based on time of day, presence, and virtual switches. The switches are controlled by Rules, and sometimes by Alexa.
I don't know that Hubitat is actually thinking about these things at all. The hub comes with some modes available, but you can remove, change, or add as many as you want in Settings -> Location and Modes -> Modes tab. So if you want to have "Day Away" then that's certainly possible.
Think about what you want to do with those modes and if you will use them in other automations or rules. For example, I want certain things to happen when I'm home during the day, other things to happen when I'm home in the evening, and still other things to happen when I'm home and asleep. When I'm away, I don't want any of those things to happen. I have a Rule set up that turns everything off, etc., when I leave. When I'm away, motion sensors are ignored (unless a door or window opens), so the cat doesn't turn the lights on. Some things, like the outside lights, completely ignore mode and come on no matter what. Of course, your use cases might be different -- and probably are.
I have changed my modes to be dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk, evening and night. These are based on time of day. Periodically, there are times when Mode is shown as Morning when it should be Afternoon, or Evening when it should be Night. What have I overlooked? How can I correct this?
