Terminology and UI for New and Existing users

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I just finished a 2 day deep dive with Home Assistant and HASSIO and after those 2 long days I have to tip my hat to the Hubitat team. You can see where they are headed with Hubitat and considering all things home automation, it sure looks like a good direction.

One of several common issues new users especially have with both HAS and Hubitat is around their respective rule engines. I see the same issue with WebCore and it's a terminology thing.

@bravenel started dealing with this issue in a positive way when he labeled RM done buttons to include the "Done with What" His use of Text button labels may not be thought highly of by the young coders with all of their minimalist thinking but I sure like it.

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At least for this average user I'm good with Triggers and Rules but my head spins when it comes to Triggered Rules. Are Triggered Rules enough like something called Conditional Functions to be called Functions?

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Well, no, it's not a Function. It is what its name implies: a rule that is triggered by an event. The rule is not evaluated until the trigger fires.

A normal rule is evaluated whenever there is a state change of any of its conditions. A triggered rule is only evaluated after the triggering event.

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i think i have a good example of a triggered rule and why a rule wouldn't work in this case.

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that is one of my light switches and it is controlled by a z-wave input device that is exposed as contacts. If i used a rule to do the same as soon as i opened or closed the contact the rule would start a never ending loop because the light would turn ON causing the rule to be evaluated which would then turn OFF the light causing the rule to be evaluated and so on.

With a triggered rule you get all the conditions of the rule but are only evaluated when the triggers happen. so in this case contact closes if the light is ON it turns OFF when i then open the contact again the condition has changed and the light turns ON. If something else turns the light OFF then use the switch this rule will then turn it back ON.

Edit: what @bravenel said :smile:

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