Back when I was automating with Vera, someone had developed a plugin that I used all of the time. He called it "Vacation Ghost" and it was described as:
"This plugin allows you to let lights be turned on and off automatically/randomly when you are on vacation or absent. It allows you to define in how many times in which phase it should turn on lights and how long they are supposed to be running on which level. Based on the variables you define the plugin does all the calculations itself. The "ghosts" are generated new in every phase, so each time it runs the times when a light turns on and how long it stays on will vary. "
Does anyone know if something like this has built HE? I always felt safer going on vacation if I had "Ghost" going through my house turning on and off lights. My neighbour even told me once that he thought I was home when I told him I was leaving for the weekend.
On a different platform, there was a platform app called Vacation Lighting Director, created and maintained by the community. I see someone has ported it here, but it doesn't look like many people use it or have tested it to see how well it works: GitHub - eyrich/hubitat-vld: Hubitat port of vacation light director from imnotbob
You can still try it. One thing you might also consider is just using an existing lighting app (pretty sure Hubitat Simple Lighting can do this) that just turns specific lights on/off at specific times, mimicking your real habits. You can use Rule Machine for anything too complicated for a stock lighting app to handle.
I have a series of rules to simulate what you are trying to achieve.
All these rules have a restriction to only work when mode is AWAY.
Rule 1.
When time condition is met start a delay and then run actions in Rule 2.
Rule 2.
Run these actions after a RANDOM delay.
Rule 3.
Turn the lights off after 90 seconds.
These series of rules then gives a random delay between 65 and 110 minutes to turn the lights on.
I also have 2 more rules that turn on and off my downstairs loo light.
Rule 4.
Turn on loo light 5 seconds after downstairs hall light turned on.
Rule 5.
Turn off loo light after 81 seconds.
This whole sequence makes it look like we have gone into the hall and turned the light on.
5 seconds later we are in the downstairs loo.
81 seconds later loo light turns off.
4 seconds later hall light turns off.
Not sure if it fools anybody but it makes me feel better.
I also have a series of rules for the upstairs hall light and En Suite Bathroom that does the same thing.
I just wanted to say "Thank You" again for pointing me to the hubitat-vld. I installed it and it worked perfectly.... It was exactly what I was looking for.
TBH I could never get VLD to work for me on ST. It would run initially then just stop working.
I must admit I never bothered to try on HE. Just came up with what I wanted using RM.
Hi.. Is this the latest version? Does it only fire when all users are out of the geofence?
Do i need to set anything or,does it just turn on random devices at random times between sunset and a specific time?
I am trying out the app. I have it set to run when away mode is active. It is not active, but gives this error in the logs.....
app:29992019-09-28 07:59:00.494 am errorgroovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: user_app_imnotbob_Vacation_Lighting_Director_838.runIn() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.Double, java.lang.String) values: [120.0, initCheck] Possible solutions: run(), run(), run(java.io.File, [Ljava.lang.String;), println(), println(), any() on line 296 (modeChangeHandler)
app:29992019-09-28 07:59:00.390 am tracemodeChangeHandler com.hubitat.hub.domain.Event@337a949b
Thank you for this. This is very similar to what I'd like to do. How do you program a random delay? I don't see that as an option. Everywhere in the rule engine I see delay it's for a fixed number of hours, minutes, and second.
This was in RM 3 I believe.
I've rewritten it into one RM4 rule.
The random element has been lost but I'm not bothered as I don't think anyone is going to sit outside measuring the light timings. it's getting the lights to follow a sequence that I'm after.
I like the Vacation Ghost concept, but would like to know if anyone has come across something that can read the past two weeks of activities and reproduce it in a loop. This would essentially turn on and off lights in the same way as it occurred in the past weeks, and repeat as required. Is that something that exists?
I am a new user, just ordered my Hubitat which I will migrate to from Wink and am starting to read up to understand what I will be able to setup. Looking forward to setting up my new Hubitat!
it's getting the lights to follow a sequence that I'm after.
