Variable alarms

šŸ“ Rule MachineĀ® All things Rule Machine
#1

I need help setting up a way to change wake up alarms for the kids. I want to be able to have a "normal" wake up alarm for school, and have a 2 hour delay alarm. Also, want to cancel the alarms if school is cancelled or out for summer/holidays.

Currently I am using Alexa for the alarms, but I have to remember to pick and choose in Alexa app when things delay or cancel.

I also have some rules setup to change automations based on delays/cancellations.

Is there a good way to tie wake up alarms into the existing RM automations? Or is there a better way to skin this cat? TIA

#2

Perhaps you can set up the various rules in Hubitat and set a virtual switch/contact which triggers your specific announcement/alarm in Alexa (using the Hubitat Amazon Alexa Skill which triggers your Alexa Routine). That is how I do this to trigger my various announcements using Alexa Routines. I originally set all my announcements up this way (using virtual switches and the Amazon Alexa Skill), then went to the Echo Speaks route. When the Echo Speaks route became more of a hassle (due to Heroku changing from free to paid requiring a local server to be set up) I returned to my original way of triggering announcements. Iā€™m sure you can set up your variable alarms using RM to trigger various Alexa Routines as well.

#3

This method involves sorcery, but if you create a virtual dimmer on Hubitat, it's level can be used to feed values to a variable that RM incorporates when calculating wake up time.

"Alexa, dim SnoozeLamp to 45."

Then the rule knows to add 45 minutes to the trigger time. Silly, I know, but within the realm of possibilities. The level would presumably get reset to 0 every midnight.

1 Like
#4

Totally off topic, but I use virtual dimmers for the timer on my exhaust fans. I can tell Alexa to set it and I donā€™t have to deal the possibility of it going negative.

1 Like
#5

Ok, I think I have it figured out.

Use run custom action, then select speech device, and pick which device you want to act on. Then use voiceCmdAsText, and parameter type is "string". The string value would be "Disable 6:30am alarm".

I was able to turn off or turn back on a specific alarm associated with a specific Alexa!

Now I just need to build this into my delay rules.

2 Likes

Download the Hubitat app