I’m still learning as I transition off ST. I had a pretty extensive setup of CoRE and Rule Machine (yep) rules on ST to automate my lights pretty much ignoring mode changes. I feel like HE leans pretty heavily on modes to set up lighting, though.
I’m curious: is there a preferred method for changing lighting with mode changes? As always, there are many ways to do it, but two obvious choices are to use Simple Automation Rules or Motion and Mode Lighting to trigger on mode changes and set the lights accordingly.
Other than keep it simple whenever possible it’s pretty much open. The apps tend to be less work, but if you’re a rule person HE does those well also. Again most start with the “Simple” version and move to RM or webCore, but it really comes down to what you’re comfortable with - performance wise they all seem to be very close, so...
You don't have to use modes at all, but it sure simplifies lots of lighting and presence related automations.
Without using modes, you might have to continually set "between X time and Y time" every time you write a rule, or use Simple Lighting or Motion Lighting. Also, with things like Motion Lighting you can have different dimming levels per mode. Bright certain times of day, dim in others.
You would also have to somehow find a way to integrate presence into those apps as you likely don't want lights or certain things happening when you are not at home.
With modes, it is a central location to set (typically) sunrise to sunset, sunset to sunrise, and home vs away. Some also use a do not disturb/sleep/night mode so particular things do or do not work while everyone is asleep.
So once you have these modes defined, then you can just select "If mode day, do X" and "If in mode away, do Y". And when mode changes from day to sleep run this action or change/set things a particular way. So in my case, with Sleep mode I mute music playing devices, certain lights don't turn on, others only turn on very dim, and so on.
I am probably not explaining all the advantages of Modes, but the couple examples I give above should hopefully help to explain how I see them being an advantage.
Curious why you say this...none of my lighting automations use mode (I've pretty much never used modes in any automations on ST or HE). Mine all rely on time of day or sunrise-sunset, contact and motion sensors. I find I like that approach best.
FYI, the Motion and Mode Ligthing app can only set dimmers to a level depending on mode when a switch is already turned on. Optionally it will also adjust levels when the mode changes for switches that are on.
I don't know, exactly. It's just the impression I get as I'm setting up the hub and automations from scratch.
I'm not sure what you mean by "when a switch is turned on to activate it." Obviously, the dimming level won't change if the lights are off... Do you mean that a time-of-day-triggered mode change alone isn't enough to trigger the dimming level and that you need to trigger the mode change with a switch?
Anyway, it was really a curiosity question, and I've got my setup working the way I want using a combination of Motion & Mode Lighting, Simple Automation, and Rule Machine.
Sorry - trying to say that a mode change won't turn on a light if it's off. Mode can only change dimmer level of lights that are already on, in Motion Lighting app. Edited my post above to make it clearer.
One more follow-up on that. If the dimming level is 0% or the switch for the device is "off" (not a separate physical switch), then Modes & Motion Lighting won't raise the dimming level to the level specified? If so, that's not what I expected. If the device is reachable on the mesh (i.e. power wasn't cut externally), I would expect it turn on. Thanks for the warning.
No problem...not my design. @bravenel can correct anything I've said if I've misquoted him. But my understanding is that if the light is off, you can't use modes to turn them on in Motion Lighting app.
Most dimmers will change the switch attribute to off when level is set to zero. These are two separate attribute, and how they function in relation to each other is up to the driver. But, setting level to > 0 will cause the switch attribute to be on.
Wrt Mode Lighting, it won't adjust a dimmer unless it has turned on the lights selected in the app.
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I was speaking only about the feature of Mode Lighting where it will optionally adjust the level of dimmers upon mode change.
But my understanding is that if the light is off, you can't use modes to turn them on in Motion Lighting app.
