Warning Light when a Garage Door is Open (subtitled: A Tale of 2 Greyhounds)

📐 Rule Machine®
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First post (my brief profile at the end), and I'm thrilled to be a part of this community!

Goal: Use RM3, Z-Wave Plus garage door tilt sensors, and Z-Wave Plus appliance module (attached to an LED lamp) to alert me (read: continually flash the LED lamp) if either / both garage doors are open.

Solution:

RM3_Garage
RM3_Garage.jpg1045×627 67.3 KB

Results: This seems to work fine, but I feel like I "lucked into" this solution. The kitchen lamp flashes if either garage door is open, and turns off when both garage doors are closed.

Concern: Is this an effective / efficient way to accomplish this? I'm new to RM3 (and not a coder); I don't understand how this actually works... I thought I would need triggers to accomplish this. Does anyone have any feedback? I'm probably over-thinking this.

Flavor Text: We have 2 greyhounds that get to their fenced in back yard by going through the garage. Before I open the door that leads from our kitchen to the garage, I need to ensure that both garage doors are closed (or else they'll bolt... it's happened once and I don't want it to happen again). This solution is improving our quality of life. :heart:

Brief Profile: I've been into home automation for about 15 years (HomeSeer, I then simplified things with Wink Hub / Wink Hub 2, now Hubitat). All of my devices are Z-Wave / Z-Wave Plus... several appliance / dimming modules, some Leviton light switches, and garage door tilt sensors. I also have several Ring devices, a Honeywell smart thermostat, SimpliSafe, 3 Alexa devices, and I really appreciate the Life360 integration for keeping my Hubitat Mode updated.

Thanks for any thoughts / insight...

1 Like
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I think that should work the way you have it. If I understand correctly, if either of your garage doors has an event (open or close), your rule will get evaluated and return either true or false and will run its respective course. If your door opens, the open event will sent to the hub and any rule subscribing to that event will fire. It the door closes, the close event will be sent to the hub. As written, if either of doors has an "event", this rule will evaluate and return true or false based on your conditions.

I don't think a trigger will work here say for example your trigger is garage door opening. If it opens, it would run your rule. However, if it closed, since it was not the trigger, your rule would not run (unless you defined a trigger for door closing).

I would suggest doing some testing with it and try each scenario of door state(s) and make sure it works like you want it before you let your dogs out :slight_smile: For example, both doors closed, both open, one open-one closed, etc. But I think it should be fine.

Scott

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Hi Scott,

You are understanding this correctly, and it's working perfectly (it's been in place for about 48 hours, and I had done the testing you described). I think I got turned around with my lack of understanding... rather than thinking of this as an event (e.g. garage door reporting that has become open or closed) that causes the rule to evaluate itself, I was thinking that the rule would need to constantly poll the sensors to see if there were changes (not efficient). I was definitely over-thinking this.

Thanks for the reply.

Rock