So I am trying to automate my lighting. Currently I have motion triggers and the light levels are set by modes. (Day 100% Night 30%). I would like to be able to override the lights when needed. What I mean by this is, sometimes i am up late at night after Night mode and i want to be able to keep the lights on at 100%. Other times, I want to be able to turn all of the lights off. I would like to have Virtual switches on my dashboard that will override my current mode for a set period of time, and then automatically return back to the correct mode.
Example: If I wanted to have a nerf war, I could pull the dashboard up and hit the "All Off" switch and all the lights would turn off and stay off regardless of motion for 30 mins. After 30 mins, the mode would return to the correct mode for that time of day.
Example 2: I am up late and the mode changes to Night more and the lights dim on me. I open my dashboard and select "Override" switch and the light operate like it is day mode (100% based on motion) for 1 hour. After 1 hour, the mode returns to night mode and the lights dim to 30%.
Are you using the built-in Motion Lighting app? If so I have recently set up almost exactly this. I can find the post where I detailed my setup if you want.
EDIT - I found the post:
And welcome btw, I noticed this was your first post.
Thank you! This is my first post of I'm sure many! Your post was great and helped me get it working how i would like. Its not exactly how I want as i cant set the Modes to change to the correct Mode related to time after a preset time. But i can live with it.
Ex. Its 5pm and Evening mode is active, I activate "watch a movie mode". The lights dim and dont react to motion for 1 hr 45mins. Then after 1hr 45mins, the lights revert back to Evening Mode until the Night mode takes over.
Glad to hear you were able to make use of my notes.
Two things spring to mind:
The watching a movie "mode", is that actually a mode in HE, or just the way you were referring to it? Only reason is I would question whether it should be a mode or just a switch you use in certain rules, etc.
The second thing is with what you are wanting to achieve with the timeout, I would setup a separate RM rule triggered by whatever you are using to represent movie mode, the first action would turn in the motion override Alexa dinner and do whatever you want to have happen for movie mode, then putting a delay in the actions before turning off the Alexa dinner and turning off movie mode and undoing any other lighting or related movie mode settings, allowing the rile to be cancelled if movie time is turned off.
No worries, take your time and enjoy the ride learning about the different parts of the system and the different options. Happy to work through my own thoughts in more detail, but also want to give you an opportunity to explore and learn.
