Restrictions not working on rule (or am I doing it wrong ?)

I have a rule that triggers a fan heater when the thermostat is heating. This is an auxiliary heater which I do not want to turn on all the time. Therefore I have created a condition to disable the rule with a virtual switch, but even though the switch is on, the rule still triggers.

I am sure this is just something that I am doing wrong, but would anyone here be able to point out my mistake ?

Add the disable button to the conditions and rule, not the disable. The disable stops this rule from running.

Let me add to this, as I did some more troubleshooting. It seems that the restriction only limits the shutting off of the fan heater. If I turn the "disable fan heater" button off, the fan heater turns off.

Yep, that's what you have programmed. You need the switch in the condition and rule.

Thank you for your suggestion. I tried to understand this but it does not work still, so my logic is not working.

Would you be able to review and/or suggest how to do this ? This is what I currently have, but it doesn´t matter if I have the disable button set to on or off.

Add an action to the false section as well.

A word of caution other posters have had accidental issues with things like heaters/water pumps etc not shutting off or not turning on at the proper time. It is potentially unsafe to do this using current HA technology (not just HE). As long as you understand the risks involved and what can happen when things fail and maybe have a good backup plan...

On the other hand HE is probably better suited than most others (ST) for doing something like this having local processing etc.

ymmv!

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First question: Do you want to disable with the switch on or with the switch off?

Second: Do you want the switch to also bypass the control and turn the fan off or just to disable the rule?

I would like to disable when the switch is on and yes, also bypass and turn the fan off if it is on already.

Thanks for the caution. I have already had an incident myself on HE where it did not turn off my heaters and some rooms reached 40° celsius due to a hang situation. That was most likely caused by the fact that I had Life 360 running and removed the app from my phone and not the HE. After I removed Life 360 from HE things have been running fine.

To mitigate this issue I have also set the heaters themselves to cut off when they reach 25° celsius on their internal temp sensor.

Before HE I used Vera to do similar things for more than 2 years, so I have some experience with this, but one can never be to careful. I have now setup a pushover for when temps go below 5° and above 30° to alert me of a potential situation.

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Use your Virtual Switch in both the Condition and Rule, as you have shown above. But make sure you also add an Action for False. Without that, the "Living Room Fan Heater" will never turn off.

Do not add the virtual switch to a Restriction, as that will prevent the rule from being able to turn things off. A Restriction stops a Rule cold in its tracks.

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