I have been off hubitat modes and using my own rule based mode manager for a long while now. Having too much free time, I felt the time was right to tackle one of my pain points, managing Modes AND the hassle of rules with modes.
I built my Mode Manager Advanced tool (thanks to AI) and I'm so comfy now it's scary!
Passing some ideas on here - YMMV.
Concept :
- I determined long ago that I didn't like the Periods based modes. There is more to Modes than that. Sleeping, for example is a mode, but it is variable.
- It also has an antonym - Awake.
- There is Home and the antonym Away as well. But these are Presence States - like on/off.
- I want to not worry about which word I choose - Away OR Home, Awake or Sleep- I want to use English not boolean (ie; I hate making rules 'If NOT asleep ..' I just want to say 'If Awake' - I don't want to concern myself with which word I choose!
- I wanted to extend Modes - so not just having morning, day, night but also a reason to be in the mode. So Morning (Voice) tells me I'm in Morning but I got there because of voice command.
- I wanted to have the ability to Override modes for testing.
- I wanted to have the ability to force modes to 'catch up', or get back on schedule.
- I wanted HSM to follow my Mode respecting presence automatically.
- I wanted to define the Presence sensor(s) that control Home/Away.
- I wanted to control my Alexa state for guard etc directly based on my Mode.
- I wanted to not need to have rules be concerned with managing Modes other than normal Conditions or triggers.
Mission accomplished! Now, if I leave or come back, my presences sets the mode correctly, tells me why it set the mode, turns HSM off, and tells Alexa 'home'. No rules required.
If I manually set a mode via switch on the dashboard, that mode enables AND it tells me I'm in Override mode (until I trigger the recheck).
When I tell Alexa I've gone to bed, the whole system switches to sleep mode (and lets me know it was triggered by Voice)
Here's my management screen (in step sections so its nicer to see)
And the Sleep section -
The Time Period section:
The Overrides Section
And of course the logging section:





