[SOLVED]Light randomisation

Hi All,

I apologise upfront as I'm sure this is a topic that has been covered before…

I'm getting to that critical mass where I have enough of my lights under Indigo control that I can do some "randomisation" when we are away to fool those pesky burglars.

But how to go about it?

Without writing loads of schedules/triggers/actions what-have-you, is there a good efficient way to get the desired effect?

Many thanks for any advice anyone can offer,

Richard.

If you're using schedules to turn them on/off you can randomize them
there. There's box you can enter the minutes you want it to randomize.

Carl

[jay (support)]

So, what I do is have some schedules that randomize some lights around the times that we would normally turn on/off lights (evening and bedtime for us). Then we enable those by adding a condition to them such that if a variable (I use houseMode) is equal to "away" or "vacation" then those schedules execute. If you think about your usage patterns, I suspect you don't need "loads" but rather just a couple of schedules to approximate that lived in look. And even if it takes more than just a couple, once you get it set up then you won't need to mess much with it over time, it'll just work.

I have created schedules like what Jay describes. I also made sure that the randomness of the on and off times would allow for potential overlap. For example, Our guest room has 3 on periods each evening with the possibility of overlap. So, most nights there are three periods, but some nights I get only two.

However, rather than using "modes" I have a trigger that disables the automatic schedule for 24 hours anytime the room light is turned on manually and another trigger to enable it if the light is douple-tapped on.

So, what I do is have some schedules that randomize some lights around the times that we would normally turn on/off lights (evening and bedtime for us). Then we enable those by adding a condition to them such that if a variable (I use houseMode) is equal to "away" or "vacation" then those schedules execute. If you think about your usage patterns, I suspect you don't need "loads" but rather just a couple of schedules to approximate that lived in look. And even if it takes more than just a couple, once you get it set up then you won't need to mess much with it over time, it'll just work.

This is what I do as well. In addition, when I have a vacation planned I add a one-time schedule that sets the variable "Vacation" to true on the day I am planning on leaving. I add another one-time schedule that sets it to false on the day I'm returning. That way I don't have to remember to set/re-set the variable when leaving/returning.

[jay (support)]

LOL - I do that too. Mainly to get the house temps back to their normal level by the time we get home…

LOL - I do that too. Mainly to get the house temps back to their normal level by the time we get home…

I do this as well. I have a set up as a programmable trigger using the "set clock" technique that you had posted before, but since it only sets the time, I have to remember to change the variable on my iPhone the day before I arrive home.

Do you know of a way to set the date of a trigger as well? I would love to be able to set the trigger *date* from my phone by changing a variable as well as the "arrive home" time?

Thanks for all the suggestions - I shall give them a try and put them into practice

Cheers!

R

[jay (support)]

Do you know of a way to set the date of a trigger as well? I would love to be able to set the trigger *date* from my phone by changing a variable as well as the "arrive home" time?

Unfortunately the schedule object isn't finished in the Python IOM so you'll need to use AppleScript. If the trigger is defined as an absolute date and absolute time (the first radio button in both the Date and Time sections of the dialog) then setting the date/time should set both:

Code: Select all

set mySchedule to time date action named "Some Schedule"
set absolute trigger time of mySchedule to date("12/20/2013 9:00 PM")