While trying to set up a Motion Lighting app I realized that it would be really nice if I could customize the lux value to turn on or off by the current mode. Here is an example of how I might use it. Around dinner time or my hub's parlance... evening mode. If I had this setting available to me I would likely set the lux much higher (since the value must be under that value to turn on) or not at all for a particular mode than I would for the other parts of the day. This would generally assure that it would be turned on during this time period regardless of the time of year. This would prevent me from having to create and maintain multiple child apps.
Thanks!
Just use Rule Machine. Then you can achieve exactly whatever you want.
I don’t really feel that’s a viable solution. Rule Machiene isn’t the answer to everything that you can’t do with the built in things. Motion Lighting is clearly a sophisticated app that is maintained by Hubitat. I think some well placed feature requests as additions to it make sense. It already supports many “by mode” options. And therefore is a natural extension to think certain items that are not currently “by mode” to grow similar features. This is why explicitly tagged it as a feature request.
Thanks!
It's definitely a viable solution, trust me. Or you can wait for new functionality of course if you prefer. I hope they can add what you ask for. But they tend not to want to keep scope creeping the basic apps for obvious reasons.
I think that's a great idea. Yes, you could do it in Rule Machine, and the other apps are meant to be used for simple tasks that are straight forward. What needs to be evaluated is where is the line to be drawn on when to break into rule machine for more complicated rules. Bruce says rules are free. So make a bunch of simple ones that contribute to a common goal to keep the processing simple and easy.
So, IMHO adding 'by mode" to the mix of simple lighting, you're starting to cross that complicated threshold because in doing this, you would want to define several modes into one rule, much like you can already do in rule machine. So in adding that to simple lighting, one would argue that you should be able to define several modes into one rule. I feel like this is something that should be controlled in rule machine just simply because adding this feature to simple lighting would not satisfy the masses. It will always need to be "more" and that line needs to be defined. So, I feel like adding "by mode" is pushing that threshold.
[EDIT]
I didn't see the lux in there, but my opinion is still the same.
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I don't know how translatable this may be to your situation, but might give you some ideas...
Before I purchased my HE I setup and even now still maintain my rules on my hue bridge. It doesn't have the notion of modes as such, so I decided to setup various scenes in each room for basically day / evening and night / bedtime. I also setup a third "Current Scene". Each time I change modes I change to the appropriate day or night scene and then capture that into the Current Scene. Then each of my rules, such as motion based rules, triggers the current scene, not needing to know the current mode in every rule.
I prefer the "by mode* style of defining rules myself, so can understand your request. And my approach does require a commitment to setting it up across the board to get the most benefit. The most I was hoping for was to prompt some thinking about the situation differently if nothing else.
So I always ask this, but what problem are you trying to solve? For example, are the lights coming on too soon or too late certain times of the year? Is the problem consistent, always too late to come on at night?
You might be able to play with modes and get what you want. You could add a new mode that is a transition between daylight and dusk. You could modify the modes to come on 30 or more minutes sooner/later.
Another way to handle this is to switch modes through Rule Machine, that is how I do mine. I am not using lux as a way to change modes, but I could add that to my rules fairly easily.
And please note that I am not dismissing your request, nor the need for lux in modes, but just giving you other options in the meantime.
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