What is the best option to have the lights turn on at 18:00, and off at 22:00?
The fewer flows the better, but I am concerned that using a delay (option 1 below) could affect the hardware and possibly shorten the lifetime of my Homey?
Options:
1- Single flow, turn lights on at 18:00 and another trigger with a delay set to 240 min to turn them off.
2- Using the app Countdown (will need several flows)
3- one flow for turning lights on at 18:00, another flow to turn them off at 22:00
My question is basically if option 1 will increase the wear of my Homey, compared to option 3?
My advice is option 3, no extra timer app needed, easy to maintaine, don’t whory about wear out your Homey, it can do more things over a longer time than you can think of.
By a Homey restart, for which reason ever, the build-in delay will stop.
I know, that a Chronograph App timer will continue after a restart of Homey, but my first choice is also no. 3.
For short periods of on/off I might consider the Timer app. I have this in place for motion/alert-based flows.
For scheduled on/off, I would use separate, time-triggered flows. You can do this on a single advanced flow. Another advantage is that you could use sun-events to have timing which automatically adapts to sunset times etc. Sun Events app: Sun Events App for Homey | Homey
Also, to distract any potential burglars you can also add random start/end times using separate flows and sunevents. So it will turn on e.g. 10-25 minutes before sunset, and e.g. between -5 and +10 offset from 23:00hrs.
It was just provided as example, given all the options you are considering but the option 3 for such long delays I would use as well. Timer is suitable eg. for 30sec / 2 min durations etc. - you will just use one trigger like that - it will Turn on and Turn off lights after given period, using it for controlling all lights in my house:
Temporary Variables App:
(also possible with the build in logic cards)
Didn’t tested my self yet, but I guess it’s also possible to calculate a random number with a seperate flow, store this number into a number variable und use this variable with the sunset/sunrise trigger card of the Sun Events App:
Turning lights OFF at random times after a preset-time; any burglar will be puzzled that lights never turn off at exactly the same time and with never the same intervals.
Similar flow to turn my lights ON when it is getting dark (times change throughout the seasons):
(uses the SunEvents app to make sure it knows when it is getting dark without the use of lux sensors)
