Understanding time ranges in RM 4.0

btw - unrelated to this it's a major PITA to cancel out of this 'time' screen and return to the previous screen. You can't just go back in the browser (dialog preventing that) and you can't hit Done without selecting a valid time first..

really needs to be a cancel button on every screen IMO

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The 'Between two times' switch referred to my post above is found when creating a conditional action and choosing 'Time of Day' as the capability. So for your use case you'd want to do something like:

Trigger-> Contact open
Actions-> If Time of Day is between 12:01 am and 6:00 am then, Play whatever

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That worked - thanks! wow.. that was super complicated though.. I can't imagine any normal user being able to figure this one out on their own.. at least that's my $.02

Not only that but if you look at this trigger you don't even see the whole between X and Y at all.. you have to view the actions to see it.

image

FWIW - I found Wink's UI to be really good at creating these kinds of things.. I didn't like that it was mobile-device only but just the way you created a 'robot' was simple and made sense. Here's hoping Hubitat will keep improving their UI as I'm sure there's a lot more people looking to ditch Wink in the coming weeks!

It gets much easier once " A trigger is only a momentary event" becomes engrained. :grin: Glad you got it worked out!

If your rule consists of what your screen shot shows, try the built in Notification app. It can do this much simpler than Rule Machine.

In fact, always try the Simple Automation, Motion Lighting, Mirror, and other apps before jumping to RM.

@neonturbo - thanks for that.. i didn't know about the other built-in apps. However, I don't see a built-in app that will handle this case.. basically:

  • any door sensor that opens between 10 PM and 5 AM should play a chime

I did setup this rule in Rule Manager but it's not working as I would expect it. Basically, the chime is played anytime the door opens during the day.

[rule]
You can't see the full rule on a single screen (yuck) but here's how it's setup:
image
[actions detail]
image

Note the "FALSE" in the time condition. I assume that means the current time is outside of this value.. is that accurate?

I have no other rules setup and the chime plays when opening the door during the day. I haven't tried between 10PM and 5 AM but guessing it won't play?

I see the "NOT this condition" which I'm guessing will work.. but, it still doesn't make sense to me
image

NOTE: I wonder if the issue is -- Rule Manager doesn't understand a start time which is LATER than the stop time.. maybe it's not smart enough to figure out the stop time is for the NEXT day..

You've set up the condition correctly, but it's not tied to your action. You need an IF statement using that conditional, something like this:

IF Time between 11:30 PM EDT and 5:00 AM EDT THEN
    Chime: Play Sound on Siren sound number 1
END-IF

When you go to add the IF statement ("Conditional Actions", then "IF (conditions) THEN"), you'll see your currently defined conditions in the "Define condition" dropdown.

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Thanks for the help.. wow, i couldn't figure out how to do what you were saying about the nested IF and was almost about to give up.. then, I deleted my rule and started over and found the IF that you were talking about..

I haven't tested it yet (too lazy right now) but I assume it'll work. However, man, that was complicated..

image

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