Think of this as “Scenes for Dummies” … a way for even a novice user to create fairly complex scenes manually without any knowledge of Timers, Events, Commands or even the naming of their home’s Z-Wave devices.
Also, the following might be a preferred way for Expert users to build new scenes, or to have Vera “learn” often-repeated “digital lifestyle” automation routines.
SUGGESTED NEW FEATURE: GIVE VERA A ‘LEARN’ BUTTON IN SCENES
-
User clicks on LEARN
-
Vera prompts, “Learn once (manual)?” or “Learn routine (automatic)?”
-
If user selects “Once”, Vera presents a “Click when scene completed…” button, along with a brief step-by-step guide of what how to proceed…
3a. User then initiates scene by activating a Z-Wave device (the “trigger”), say turning on a particular light…
…then activates other devices, either manually or using Vera’s UI (the “commands”)… and Vera populates the new Scene with these.
3b. User clicks “Completed” and Vera inquires, “Always run this scene at this time of day?” (Y/N), where Y means add a pre-set Timer, and N means no Timer. -
The other mode (“Automatic”) would involve Vera watching over the course of several days for patterns of Z-Wave activity which do not (yet) correspond with a scene, such as “User always sets thermostat back to 78 around 10:40 PM and turns off the hallway light about 10 minutes later.” And Vera offers to create this scene for you!
Could be a fun way for even veteran users to become aware of usage patterns they currently employ unconsciously.