Is disabling the flows a way to go when you don’t want a flow to run, or should you stick to using the criteria in AND to decide whether the flow should continue?
I am trying to decide upon a method to use in my flows where the trigger is often being activated.
Illustrative example
Alt. 1
1 Motion sensor active → AND the lock is locked → THEN Unlock
Alt 2.
1-1. Motion sensor active → AND … → THEN Unlock + Disable the flow
1-2. The lock is locked → THEN Enable the flow 1-1
Is something to be gained from using alt. 2? Especially if the particular trigger is often activated, or even used as a trigger in many other flows (i.e. motion or door sensors).
Does it make other (enabled) flows run faster?
For me it looks like you could
spare Homey for some computing time if unnecessary flows are OFF?
I would choose option 1 it’s much easier to read and manage. Personally, I never use enable or disabling a flow other than for testing/development purposes.
If flows are more complex you can also use setting and validating variables
Option 2 will save a bit of processing time but is harder to maintain in the future when you have forgotten what can disable and enable flows.
So it’s just down to personal preferences.
So, good to know that there is no concrete advice against the use of one or the other. I wanted to check if the latter maybe was considered a no-no in the programing circles.
I agree with the use of validating variables as @Matrean suggested, but I do disable some flows with triggers that are used to start more than a few flows (mostly sensors or time activated/every X minutes).
I’m using flow comments app and log to keep track of so called switch flows toggling flows on and off.
