Scene Triggers and Conditions can be used to setup advanced automation tasks in your home. Triggers and Conditions work together to automate the activation of scenes.
Triggers are used to automatically activate a scene. A trigger can be a repeating time of day or can be based on the action of another device -- such as a motion sensor detecting movement.
Triggers are available in version 3.0+ and can be accessed by selecting the "Triggers" tab on the scene details page.
Multiple triggers work exclusively of each other. For example, if you setup a trigger to activate a scene at 8:00 AM and another trigger to activate the scene when motion is detected, then your scene would always be activated at 8 AM as well as anytime motion is detected.
A Time Trigger defines a time that will be used to activate a scene. This can be a specific time, such as July 23rd at 8:00 AM, or it can be a time which repeats at a defined interval.
For example, to make a trigger that would activate a scene every 10 minutes, you could pick a Repeat Interval of 'Minutes' with an Interval Number of 10.
Time Triggers can also be set to activate the scene at both Sunset and Sunrise by choosing the Sunrise or Sunset in the Time Type box. To make sure your sunset and sunrise times are calculated properly, be sure to setup your location in Tools/Options.
A device trigger will activate a scene based on the action of another device. For example, you might want to activate a scene when a motion sensor detects motion in a room or when a door sensor is activated.
To setup a trigger based on a device, choose the device and then select a level at which the device must read to activate the trigger. For most devices, a value of "0" indicates off. For motion sensors and door sensors, a value of 255 indicates that motion was detected or that the door was opened.
Conditions are used to limit when a trigger will be able to activate a scene. You might have a scene set to activate every 10 minutes but unless a condition is met, the activation will be aborted.
If more than one condition is specified in a scene, all of them need to pass in order for the scene to be triggered.
The following conditions can be created in a scene:
A time condition specifies that the trigger can only activate the scene before or after a given time, or between two specified times. These times can include a time of the day or sunset/sunrise. You can also choose the time to be "Before Dark" or "After Dark" if it only applies during light or dark conditions.
A device at state condition requires that a device level be at a given state in order for the scene trigger to be valid. For example, you might use this to specify that the a scene can't be activated unless the temperature in above 75.
This condition is similar to Device At State condition, except that it adds a time element to it as well. As an example, you might wish to activate a scene only after a door has been opened for more than 20 minutes.
Use the Day of Week condition to specify which days of the week a scene trigger is valid for.
