I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I had a simple rule in my Rule Machine that has been working perfectly all summer until I did a recent update. I am currently running 2.1.4.125 I am not sure what I was running before when I got the behavior I wanted.
I have an exhaust fan in my East Facing garage. The fan is used to cool down the garage in the Summer. I had a simple rule with the Trigger event being the temperature sensor in the garage exceeding 80 degrees. I dont have a temp sensor outside, but if my fan runs while the sun is still on the front side of the house, I am just pulling hotter air into the garage. So, I had set what i will call a restriction (not sure if thats the right term because it vanished in the upgrade. I set it so the trigger was ignored every month except May-Sept and I also had it ignored until it was after 6pm. It worked perfect. IF my garage was hot in June, and it was after 6pm, then the fan ran. It worked great all summer, and today I was outside and heard the fan running at 2pm, and turned it off manually. It came back on within 15 minutes (Might have been faster). This means my fan runs any time the indoor temp is above 80, even though its sucking 95-degree air into the garage.
Now, when I look at the simple rule, there is no section of the rule page that lets me set Restrictions. I see something about local variables that I dont remember seeing before. Has the feature changed to where I cannot do what I did before?
However, it's still possible to do what you want (that's actually why they were retired: they were a less powerful, more confusing way to do what Rule Machine has been able to do since 4.0 and in most cases even 3.0). What you'll need to do use use a conditional in your rule actions somewhere, either an IF around your actions or just a simple conditional action on the action itself. The post above may give you some ideas, and if you're not sure, feel free to post your rule here. Good luck!
True, but the ability to make new rules in 3.0 is going away in the next version (unless you create a blank rule and clone it). There are also some disadvantages to restrictions in general that are often not considered when using them on rules, so I'd just go with conditionals in 4.0 regardless--it gives you more control over what happens when the "restriction" is in effect rather than just not doing anything at all (a frequent point of confusion--e.g., a rule that turns lights on or off but only between 6 and 9 PM won't them off after 9 PM even if the rule turned them on minutes before, despite many humans actually wanting that).
Thanks for the extra info. I was able to easily adapt the rule using Rule conditions rather than restrictions. I never looked at the other capabilities or the Rule Machine. I guess I need to spend some more time playing with all the features.
