Toggle Lights hourly

Developer's Corner Scene Scripting
#1

Hi, Just got my VERA setup a few days ago and now I’m trying to expand what I’m doing with them. One thing I wanted to do was have a set of lights go on for 5 minutes then off ever hour between 10pm and 4 am. In general where would I start with such a goal?

#2

From a MCV perspective this is a COMPLEX scene requiring you to use LUA.
The reason … you have complex Conditions … Hourly interval between Certain times.

There are multiple ways to do this. One way:

  1. Create a Scene
  2. Add and Hourly timer.
  3. In the LUA code for the Scene if the time is between 10:00 PM and 4:00 A.M.
    return true else return false
  4. When you return false from step 3 the actions of the Scene will not fire.
    Create Immediate action for Scene to turn on Lights.
    Create a delayed schedule for 5 Minutes … Here you can turn off the lights.

NOTE: if your Vera restarts during the 5 minute period after 4:00 A.M. the lights will stay on all day. Vera does not handle the delayed actions of a scene if a restart happens!

For a better approach see:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,13802.0.html

#3

Thanks, I’ve been poking around with the PLEG plug-in - very cool stuff. I’m seeing now that there are always a few ways to accomplish things between the plug-ins and using the LUUP code. I’ll keep experimenting; really appreciate the support to help me get started in the right direction.

#4

fsa317, I do need to run exactly same automation. Could you please share how have you implemented with PLEG? Thanks in advance

#5

If you are looking to have lights come on to simulate that someone is home when they are not, there are some apps that do this.

I use “Deus Ex Machina”, which randomly turns lights on and off while we are away.

#6

Thanks JoeTomasone, but I do need exactly same automation: lights go on for 5 minutes then off every hour between 7am and 11pm (no random)

#7

In PLEG this can be done as follows:

Create TWO input Schedules:
Hourly Interval Schedule … ON with an interval of 1:00:00 OFF with an interval of 5:00
DailySchedule ON Mon-Sun at 7:00:00 OFF Mon-Sun at 23:00:00

Two conditions:
LightOn Hourly AND DailySchedule
LightOff NOT LightOn

And of course the Actions would be:
LightOn Turn on light(s)
LightOff Turn off light(s)

You may need more logic if this needs to some how interact with a manual schedule (i.e. if the light was already on … should it be turned off ?)

#8

Thank you very much RichardTSchaefer!