Setting up modes (Day, Evening, Night, Away, Vacation) in Homey

Flows
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1

I’m in the middle of transitioning from Futurehome to Homey. While Futurehome had different home modes (Day, Night, Away and Vacation) built in, I understand I must build my own Flows for this in Homey. That’s no big issue, and I believe I have it mostly figured out.

One thing I’m still wondering a bit about is how to set up day mode. The way I have it in Futurehome, when day mode is first set, all lights triggered by motion will go to a set dimming percentage (50 %), and then afterwards they stay at the percentage last set by the users.

I was thinking that I need to do something like this in Homey:

  • When motion is detected, dim to 50 %.
  • Wait 5 minutes (just to let things settle down after the mode change, I have a pretty extensive Z-Wave network and had to do it this way in Futurehome to avoid trouble).
  • Change to when motion is detected, turn ON (as I believe this will just go to the last used dimming level).

It this the correct way of thinking? This is overly simplistic with regards to how the Flow needs to be set up, but I’m just trying to get an idea of whether this is the right way to go about it.

Another thing I would like to do is make an Evening mode where all lights (Fibaro Dimmer 2) are set to a specific dimming level without necessarily being turned on (to avoid being blinded by a light being switched on to 100 %, for example). This wasn’t possible in Futurehome, but in Homey I believe this can be done by using “Set forced brightness”? But here I would also like to be able to change the dimming level if required. So, I’m thinking something like this:

  • When Evening mode is activated, set forced brightness to 10 %.
  • When a light is switched on, set forced brightness to 0 (to allow for manual adjustment).

Would something like this work? If yes, I see that I would probably have to use another mode (such as Day or Night) to remove the forced brightness level from all affected dimmers after using Evening mode.

Don’t worry too much about the actual execution, as soon as I get some more time I need to read up on the basics of making advanced Flows in Homey. I won’t waste your time teaching me how to make flows. :sweat_smile: I’m just wondering whether I’m generally barking up the right tree or not. :wink:

2

You should try to work with variables. Define variables for your modes and then you use them in your flows. That’s the way I do it.

3

First of all it is not clear if lamps are always switched on via flows.

In stead of waiting for motion detected you could set the dimming level at a certain time or when Day Mode has become become active.

Or when motion detected you can set the dimming level to a percentage depending upon the current mode.

Depending on the devices used, dimming a lamp will also switch on the lamp.
So may be you first try out a few things.

To make sure lamps don’t start at 100%, you first set dimming level to 0 before switching off the lamp.

You might have a look at Moods.

4

Yes, I did look briefly at variables. I guess using those may be a tidier solution. Will study those a bit more, thanks. :+1:

5

Not all, only in certain areas.

As far as I can understand, being able to set a dimming level without turning the light on is how parameter 19 for the Fibaro Dimmer 2 works?

Yes, I haven’t looked too much at those yet. Thanks for the tip. :+1:

6

Ok, I have no experience with Fibaro Dimmer 2.

7

I’m basing my assumption on this:

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Also, there is this thread:

8

Then making this work is first priority :grin:

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Hello Torfinn
I just went from FH to Homey this holiday as well.
For mode I am using variables for day/night/holiday/away modes.
But i also have made some virtual units for buttons day/night/holiday. Virtuelle Enheter App for Homey | Homey
This way you also can see easily what mode is activated. Might be other ways to do it easier, but this is how i fixed it for now :slight_smile:

So when one is pushed it activtes feks. day/night variables and so on.

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Hi, Tom!

I believe I remember you from the FH forums. I guess there are some more “refugees” from FH to other systems apart from me, then. :wink::+1:

I’ll definitely look into using virtual devices, thanks a lot for the tip! :grinning::ok_hand: