Trigger a scene based on DUSK/DAWN?

Community Playground General Discussions
1

I know I can set a scene based on like 6AM/6PM, but if I want security lights on at disk off at dawn, isn’t there a way to do that without a light sensor?

Seems like since vera knows where I am, it should also know what time it gets light and dark in my zipcode? Similarly it should also know what my current weather is - rain, windspeed, temp, humidity, etc (which would ALSO be a nice scene trigger to have)…

Daylight savings and seasons make for a lot of annual tweaking otherwise…

Thanks gurus!

???

2

Whilst you can use lua ‘is night’ I prefer to use the ‘Day or Night’ app as it allows an offset from dusk and dawn.

3

Slartibartfast thanks I didn’t think of looking at the aps. I see temperature and rainfall in there also. Great suggestion! 8)

4

Also, directly in UI7 for scenes if you pick the daily schedule as the trigger, you can select sun rise or sun set with an offset instead of a specific time.

5

Shallowearth I’m not seeing that option (Vera lite UI7):

Select Interval (example: recording video every hour), or Daily, Weekly, Monthly to repeat schedule automatically, or One-Time scheduling.

You are running the latest version: 1.7.730

6

I installed the day/nite ap, but I don’t see anywhere to use it in scene creation? It doesn’t appear as a virtual device, or on the schedule tab?

7

[quote=“spydox, post:5, topic:189977”]Shallowearth I’m not seeing that option (Vera lite UI7):

Select Interval (example: recording video every hour), or Daily, Weekly, Monthly to repeat schedule automatically, or One-Time scheduling.

You are running the latest version: 1.7.730[/quote]

No need for a plug-in. As stated Vera does this already with scenes. I just pulled it up (I use PLEG, not scenes). First, add a scene. Select Schedule for the trigger. Click the slider “button” area under Daily. Where it says “At time of Day” it is a drop down menu. There is where you select sunrise, sunset, before sunrise, before sunset, after sunrise, after sunset.

8

Installing the app should have crested a device called day or night that looks like a sun or a moon .

Also, in UI7 you select daily in the scene and then you get the option for sunrise, sunset, before, after. Just use this.

9

DOH sorry guys- its all there in the dropdown… as RHINESEL said

Thanks for the help and patience.

:smiley:

10

Here is screen shot of the sunrise/sunset options in UI7

11

[quote=“spydox, post:9, topic:189977”]DOH sorry guys- its all there in the dropdown… as RHINESEL said

Thanks for the help and patience.

:D[/quote]

NP, trust me, we’ve all been there. I often live there.

12

thanks shallowearth. I see it now. As my wife says I have to be hit with a brick sometimes to wake up ha! :stuck_out_tongue:

13

I still use the Day Or Night plugin … even though you can do this in PLEG (And Scenes).

The design principals for this follows:
[hr]

The reason … it is my Day or Night Mode switch. Sometimes I want day/night behavior at times other than normal. Then I can manually set day or night.
I can also test my day logic at night and my night logic during the day with this mode override.

I do not find the UI7 modes useful … Mostly because my DAY - NIGHT modes are orthogonal to my HOME - AWAY modes.
I also have Weather Modes (Freeze, Windows - Open Fan Mode, Windows - Closed HVAC mode)

Also my TRAVELLING mode is a specialization of AWAY … when I am AWAY for more than 8 hours.
The UI7 modes do not allow that kind of flexibility.
My Modes are set automatically … i.e. they change the Day/Night device or a Multi-Switch state.
My automation logic operates on the MultiStwitch values and Day/Night settings.

It was intentionally designed such that the logic that knows how/when to change modes does not deal directly with what happens when modes change.
Using a PLEG schedule with sunrise/sunset settings violates this design … unless it is being used to change the mode.

14

RichardTSchaefer

Thank you that’s a very good explanation. I think for my purposes the day/nite will be ok, but I do wonder about their criteria. I suppose its mostly just a matter of sunset/sunrise for my zipcode, which is close enough for security lights. But there are other factors like clouds, rain , etc that can make “dark-thity” earlier than sunset?

Best wishes!