Seeking insight on Modes

[jshimota]

This may be long winded - be advised.
Over the years, I've always struggled with modes as it pertains to sleeping and to home/away.
Initially - mode was a period. day was 9-5 etc. But sleeping doesn't fit that. Sleeping was a state. When I headed to catch z's, i'd flip a virtual switch. Again, not this was in the earlier years of HE for me.
Home and Away also are 'state'. Either you're home, or your not. I didn't realized that Mode Manager was actually my limitation because it handled periods but not states.
Later, someone added some abilities to mode manager to use switches for home/away and that was awesome. it solved a few items I struggled with, and simplified mode 'management'.
Still - one of my biggest pains never was addressed. Sleeping.
Since sleeping was a state for me, just like home and away, I have no way to manage modes with Mode Manager for one mode, Sleeping. So I started convoluted ways to get around the problems Mode Manager was creating for me. Rules, virtual switches etc etc. It turned into a quagmire simply because Mode Manager had a fault that early on I did not realize.
This created a new problem, how can you trigger Mode manager when coming from sleeping? A year or so ago I realized I could toggle Home and Away as a sort of virtual switch to get Mode manager to work right coming out of Sleeping mode. This worked great for a while, but now, it doesn't. And worse, my environment is so messy, convoluted and nonsensical that I'm ready to sh*Tcan the whole modes thing and handle it completely without mode manager.

Since I don't go to bed at a specific time, sleeping can't be a period. How are people (you folks) doing it in a sensible way? I need sleeping as a mode, so I can do specific tasks, set superlow lights in the bathrooms etc etc. I'm looking for 40000' stuff - not general discussion of how to use mode manager. thanks.

[sburke781]

To start with.... Don't get too hung up on whether mode manager can handle the transitions you need to be able to make from one mode to another, it is just one way to handle these transitions, but modes are able to be changed in any of the built-in automation apps. Secondly, don't feel you have to use modes at all, they are a quite useful way to capture a central reference for how different automations are meant to behave, with broad use across built-in apps, but you don't have to use modes on their own, hub variables, virtual switches and other indicators can be used, potentially multiple of each, to drive your automations.

So, to get a little more tangible.... I don't currently use mode manager myself... I don't think... Not that I have anything against it, I just have a few different ways I manage mode transitions. I agree with you, my sleep patterns are not consistent, so a time-of-day would never suit me. For moving into "Night/Sleep" mode, and coming out of Night/Sleep mode, I always use a manual trigger, typically a Samsung button or hue tap dial. I have these in a central spot the Kitchen / Living area, the Study and alongside my bed, so can always access one quite quickly and easily.

For moving from Day mode to Evening, I have this based on either sunset +/- or lux levels from some outdoor hue motion sensors, but can also use similar manual triggers if I want. I also have a "Relax" mode that I can also trigger manually for lower level lighting in later parts of the evening.

To be honest, I haven't used presence detection for some time now, I just turn things off, so have not used my Away mode much at all. I do intend to get back to using it in some way though. I used to have it based on presence detection, possibly a combination of HE and Life360.

It is kind of funny, modes were one of the things that made me start looking for an automation hub. I used to do relatively complex automations on my Hue bridge, using variables to drive different scenes depending on whether I was in "bedtime" mode or not. HE opened up a whole new realm of possibilities, including much more choice in how to manage my automations.

[bjcowles]

For me, a "Sleep" virtual switch controlled by a Withings Sleep sensor works well and is used in a variety of ways. Mode manager is left out of it because even if I'm in bed, I am still at home and it's still either Morning, Day, Evening, or Night.

I trigger rules on the switch changing, restrict rules with it, pause actions in rules, and vary lighting settings with it.

[sburke781]

That was another point I meant to make.... It's my understanding that one of the original intentions / use cases for modes was more within HSM to align to home security systems and the different modes they tended to offer. Not that it was ever a hard and fast rule that you had to use it only for this purpose, but I feel like that was the inspiration. Regardless of whether this was the case or not, my point is don't feel constrained by having a single representation of the mode the home is in and needing to use that single mode across all of your automations. You can use whatever you want, modes are just one option.

[JB10]

@jshimota

Since I don't go to bed at a specific time, sleeping can't be a period. How are people (you folks) doing it in a sensible way?

My overnight mode starts via one of three ways: telling Google goodnight, pushing a button on the nightstand, or 11:15pm. Whichever comes first will shutdown everything and get the house to act as i define for overnight/sleeping. This is all defined in one rule within Rule Machine.

I actually use Rule Machine to define all my modes and their transitions rather than Mode Manager.

[bravenel]

Bedside Pico with one button dedicated to going to sleep, and another for getting up, is one solution. I use this as a control for Room Lights (it happens to set Mode Manager as well, but that's not really relevant). When one of us takes a nap, these buttons stop (or resume) Room Lights turning on/off lights based on motion. So it works independently of time of day.