home away and season event

[lazy_bums]

I have multiple events programmed
some are sensor triggered
some are absolute time trigerred ( eg heating)
some are variable time trigerred ( eg outdoor lights with sunset)

how do i write an event of away from home/vacation etc, which tells homeseer not to trigger all the events for lets say 20 days.

also how do we make events automatically recognize summer vs winter(
that is use heat to x degree in winter and cool to x degree in summer.
i see conditions under trigger to set events to certain days or time but not to months/season

[Rupp]

I have a virtual device I called vacation that I turn on when we go on vacation. I have an event that is triggered when this device changed to status *Any*
This runs a script that enables several events and disable several events.
The events I enable are security events that randomly turn lights on and off all over the house. It disables the event that turns off my whole house audio so all announcements are heard on our outdoor speakers. It disables the automatic adjustment of my tstats and enables the event that turns the heat down or air up. Etc.

To know if it's winter or summner I have 2 events that runs each night at 2AM and it simply checks to see if the date is between values and it sets a virtual device to either heating or cooling.

For heating, I use:
Date is after 11/1/Y
OR
Date is before 4/1/Y
Everyday

For cooling I use:
Date is after 4/1/Y AND
Date is before 11/1/Y
Everyday

[lazy_bums]

that seems a step above my current knowledge about homeseer. thanks for your reply.

would you mind giving me some pointers or links about how to set up virtual devices or write the scripts you mentioned. if you could give me a copy of the script, that would be even better.

[Rupp]

A virtual device is simply created by selecting the add device option. Virtual is one of the device types. This is a device that can simply hold data, a value, a string, etc.

The script I use is full of

hs.EnableEvent("Vacation Deck Lights-1")
hs.EnableEvent("Vacation Deck Lights-2")
hs.EnableEvent("Vacation Porch Lights-1")
hs.DisableEvent("Mute Speech (On)")
hs.DisableEvent("Turn Off Stereo")

[Vector]

Rupp,

Thanks! That is exactly what I was looking for. I was starting to develop events with too many conditions/groups. They worked but it was getting complicated.



I plan to use this approach for things like:

1. Events that only run during certain times of the year (summer events, winter events, Christmas events, etc)
2. Events that are run during certain situations (vacation, alarm is set, etc)
3. Overrides - e.g. I have a fairly elaborate set of whole house fan control events based on inside temp, outside temp, tomorrows expected high, etc. But sometimes I want to be able to FORCE the whole house fan ON, Or PREVENT the fan from operating, EVEN if the normal conditions are met.

I am assuming you cannot perform the event enable/disable as an event action. I have not seen it anywhere. IF that exists could you point me to it? If not, maybe a future feature request for those of us who have limited scripting ability (but this one is simple, even I can figure it out!). The other advantage of having this as an event action is that if the event name is changed, it would automatically be reconciled - as a script, it will just stop working.

Regards,
Vector

[RAM]

I have virtual devices set up for:
- Heating Season and Cooling season - to determine heating and cooling setpoints and if fans should or shouldn't turn on or off automatically.
- Do we have guests? - tells the system I have guests so it doesn't start turning off lights and setting the thermostat down at our normal bedtime.
- Christmas Lights are up - I use this one to determine if certain outside outlets and lights should turn on and off when I have Christmas decorations up. Also it helps determine if my normal security type lighting turns on at dusk or later when it turn off the Christmas lights.
- Enable automatic exhaust fan operation - tells the system whether to allow my whole house exhaust fan to turn on during the summer if outside conditions are right.
- Home/Away - enables or disables many functions such as leave the thermostat where I set it while we're away on vacation, run random lightng scenario in the evening when were away, including random trips to the bathroom at night, ....

Then as a condition in many events I just use one of the virtual devices status to determine if that event should run or not, or make it a condition of how a script should run.
By having these 'virtual' devices, I can, for example, get all set up for vacation ahead of time but just setting up an event to set my 'Home/Away' device to 'Away' at a certain time on a certain day. Then I don't have to remember to do it as we're walking out the door.

[huxley]

1. Overrides - e.g. I have a fairly elaborate set of whole house fan control events based on inside temp, outside temp, tomorrows expected high, etc. But sometimes I want to be able to FORCE the whole house fan ON, Or PREVENT the fan from operating, EVEN if the normal conditions are met.

Vector,

I had the same idea to program something like that. I'm just started on the home automation and making my list of things I need to buy for this. As of now I do have control over my HVAC through z wave and lights. I was looking into two different approaches for this, 1st is to use the HVAC fan with outside air damper, second a separate attic fan with an outside air damper in the return duct as path for the fresh air to come in. How did you do this, what components did you use for all this and what events/ conditions did you program for the fan? Any help would be greatly appreciated.