I’m struggling to setup a flow. I have the air-conditioning in the main bedroom configured in Homey so I can turn it on and off via devices in Homey no problem. What I’m trying to do is setup a flow seems to be very simple but it doesn’t seem to work…
If the Air conditioning is “on” at 11:30pm then turn it off (reason apparent I don’t want to leave it on all night)
I’ve tried
When… Date and time is 11:30pm (this doesn’t seem to have an option to specify a time after)
And… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “is turned on”
then… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “Turn off”
That doesn’t seem to work
I also tried
When… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “Turned on”
And…The time is later than 11:30pm
Then… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “Turn off”
Neither of these have worked.
What’s the difference between “is turned on” and “turned on” and
Why cannot i not specify “the time is later than” under the when… option
puzzled why my flow doesn’t seem to work.
In homey “When” is a specific trigger consition.
“Time is later then” is not specific, it a whole period (it is an AND condition)
BUT you are on the right track!
This one looks fine. It should switch it off at exactly 11:30pm if its still on.
(It will not switch it off when the airco is switched on at or after 11:30pm)
and
WHEN airco is turned on AND time is after 11:30pm is almost right.. (it will only trigger between 11:30pm and midnight).
So change that to is between 11:30pm and 09:00am
Not sure why you flows do not function as theyseem OK.
TIP: add some cards to check every step.
You can use the “simple log” app or just add push messages.
“Is turned on” is a AND condition (something else triggered the flow AND then you check if its on)
“Turned on” is a WHEN condition (switching on the airco triggers the flow)
I used this flow
When… Date and time is 11:30pm (this doesn’t seem to have an option to specify a time after)
And… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “is turned on”
then… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “Turn off”
I’ve done some further troubleshooting, and this is what i found.
The aircon brand is Samsung and is about a year old and used to control it via smart things.
I tried playing the flow in Homey (green play button when you create the flow) and then seeing if it worked with different scenarios in reality (highlighted them below to stand out)
If I turn on the aircon via the wall control it seems that homey doesn’t detect that its “on” and then the play sequence fails at And… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “is turned on”. and it will not turn off the aircon via the flow in reality.
If I turn on the aircon via smart things application on my phone again it seems that homey again doesn’t detect that its “on” and then the play sequence fails at And… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “is turned on”. and it will not turn off the aircon via the flow in reality.
If i turn on the aircon via the Homey App under devices Then it seems that homey does detect that its on and then the play sequence succeeds at And… Main bedroom Air conditioning cassette “is turned on”. and it turns off the aircon via the flow. SUCCESS! but not really a great outcome.
I took it one step further and i turned on the aircon on the wall display (aircon on) and then went into Homey and then turned it on under devices. The flow then worked to turn it off.
What i realised is that if I don’t use Homey to turn the aircon “on”, or to ensure that device is on in Homey when its actually “on” it will not detect that it’s in an “on” state.
Is this s bug?
surely, I shouldn’t have to turn the devices on with Homey to get it to detect that it’s in an on state? Shouldn’t Homey be able to validate that’s its in an “on” state?
I Renamed the Topic:
Turn Samsung SmartThings air conditioning off at a certain time
To make clear the brand. Had to search and reread several reply’s to find it out
That is up to the App developer, afaik: IR, RF and several others it just send’s an ON or OFF command regardless of the state. Almost sure for Zigbee and Z-Wave it does send the command.
But this looks like a Cloud API and that could also be limiting.
Hi @Andy_Henderson we’ve fallen asleep and left it on that’s why we haven’t tuned it off at 11:30. What I’m trying to do is setup a flow to turn it off in case that happens again. As i mentioned above unless my wife or use Homey to turn it on the flow wont work to turn it off.
@Dijker & @FKey I’ll need to do some further testing, but i tested on the Samsung unit on my ground floor, with a different outcome.
Upstairs i use cassettes in each room instead of a zone based setup for air-conditioning.
Downstairs its a zone based setup.
When i turned on the Air-conditioning on the wall control downstairs - Homey did detect that it was on. I was then able to use devices under homey to turn it off. So if i used that same flow downstairs it would work turning it off.
Upstairs where the issue has been experienced in the main bedroom it uses a cassette aircon, ill need to test if the same issue is also happening in the other rooms upstairs as they also use cassettes. This will then confirm that that the issue is with the cassettes aircon units. Ill come back with the outcome of testing later this week.
Then is there a way to feed this back to Samsung or Homey Dev? So they can correct?
I have the same requirement but for a gas fire. It’s thermostat controlled so it’s not easy to spot I left it on when I go to bed. I use a flow to turn it off at 11.30 (coincidentally). I’ve no way to test the state of the fire, but that doesn’t matter. If I didn’t turn it on, or I remembered to turn it off, turning it off again does nothing. If I left it on, the flow turns it off.
Looks like i was wrong - both downstairs and upstairs air conditioners (Ducted\zone or Cassettes) all have the same issue - if i turn them on via non Homey methods then the flow will not work (homey doesn’t identify them as on or off).
Interesting details -
I’d rather use Homey, but i thought I’m going to try the same flow in Smart things - It worked fine and even though i turned on the air conditioner via the wall panel it turned it off via the flow.
Smart things provides an option… Under the IF condition it reflects an “on or off” option which is what Homey needs.
@FKey or @Dijker can i submit this for the developer to work on anywhere? any idea?
Just a test: If You switch Your conditioners via “non Homey methods” ( includes also manual button press ) - does the device status changes in Homey?
If not, then the secondary culprit is known - Homey is to smart ( lazzy ) to switch off device, already in “off” state.
But the root cause is actually integration with Homey, which one must know also about state changes, made via “non Homey methods”.
As i do not know the internal life of the integration(App) - then just some general recommendations:
Attempt to re-connect devices - may-be the Homey’s addresse changed and reports are sent to void
Attempt to find out, is there parameter to set polling interval in App
In response to your question
"If You switch Your conditioners via “non Homey methods” ( includes also manual button press ) - does the device status changes in Homey? " - let me test and come back to you
I agree - “the root cause is the actual integration with Homey”, based that smart things seems to be able to determine the state of the device.
Any idea how i can if there is a parameter to set polling interval in App? (I’m clueless how i can find this out)
Hoi!
Just look, if there is some in the device properties Sorry, do not have experiences with Your specific device. But have had similar situations with other ones.
If there is really the “out of sync” issue - then You can connect with the App Developer, and report the problem.
Sorry, do not have experiences with Your specific device. But have had similar situations with other ones.