Seasons

[TomTom]

So I'm adding season's virtual devices(spring, summer, winter, fall) to use in events.
Using the meteorological seasons of 3 months each:

• spring - starting March 1 and ending May 31,
• summer - starting June 1 and ending August 31,
• fall (autumn) - starting September 1 and ending November 30, and
• winter - starting December 1 and ending February 28 (February 29 in a Leap Year).

I set up the following events with specific dates, but any year with After This Date and Before This Date Conditions.
I'm just ignoring the leap year situation.

After there any obvious problems, or overlap? I put Fall as being Before 11/30/Y, but Winter After 11/30/Y or does Winter need to be After 12/1/Y?

Here are the events.

[macromark]

Tom - Why don't you just create ONE virtual device "season" and assign "Winter", "Spring", "Summer" and "Fall" to it in the status graphics tab. Then change this one device to the appropriate value at the dates you want. Since the one device can only have one value at a time, that prevents any overlap.

[TomTom]

See this is why I hang out here where the smart folks are at. One day it will rub off...one day... You are right!! Don't know why I didn't think of that. Thanks so much!!

Tom - Why don't you just create ONE virtual device "season" and assign "Winter", "Spring", "Summer" and "Fall" to it in the status graphics tab. Then change this one device to the appropriate value at the dates you want. Since the one device can only have one value at a time, that prevents any overlap.

[randy]

So I'm adding season's virtual devices(spring, summer, winter, fall) to use in events.
Using the meteorological seasons of 3 months each:

• spring - starting March 1 and ending May 31,
• summer - starting June 1 and ending August 31,
• fall (autumn) - starting September 1 and ending November 30, and
• winter - starting December 1 and ending February 28 (February 29 in a Leap Year).

I set up the following events with specific dates, but any year with After This Date and Before This Date Conditions.
I'm just ignoring the leap year situation.

After there any obvious problems, or overlap? I put Fall as being Before 11/30/Y, but Winter After 11/30/Y or does Winter need to be After 12/1/Y?

Here are the events.

I think the second event will fail. We went through this and I think I proved it at that time. When you chose any year it begins and ends on midnight, December 31. See this thread in the clinic.

The gist of it is:
There is a tremendous amount of flexibility in these conditions, but first we should cover one nuance similar to time events. HomeSeer assumes the year begins and ends at midnight on December 31, when you are choosing "Any Year" and when you choose “The date is before” you need to understand that the year begins at 12:00AM on January 1 making the statement “The date is before March 1” really means the date is after December 31 but before March 1. Similarly “The date is after October 31” assumes it is before January 1.

The only way to have a time condition based upon "Any Year" that spans the December 31 dividing line is to use two separate trigger/conditions. To have the condition cover the time span from October 31 until March 1 is to use a more complex event construction tool, the “OR IF”. That is a topic we will cover later in building events, but it is in its simplest form:

IF Trigger
AND IF The date is after 10/31/Y

OR IF Trigger
AND IF The date is before 3/1/Y

If you choose specific years as in the following example, HomeSeer knows to ignore the end of the year.

IF Trigger
AND IF The date is after 10/31/14
AND IF The date is before 3/1/15

And I agree with Mark on the single device.

[TomTom]

Thanks for catching that. I didn't even see that, but certainly see it now.

So I setup winter as per the example. Is this correct? I will set up single device as per Mark. TIA

[randy]

Thanks for catching that. I didn't even see that, but certainly see it now.

So I setup winter as per the example. Is this correct? I will set up single device as per Mark. TIA

That will do it.

[macromark]

Instead of creating an event that constantly is checking for dates before or after and then dealing with leap years, why not just trigger on the 12:00 AM for March 1, June 1, Sept 1 and Dec 1? That keeps it pretty simple. Here's my event structure:

[Steve Q]

I have groups that are seasonal - like HVAC-Summer, HVAC-Winter, Christmas, etc. For each of these groups I have group conditions added: For EXample; IF date is After 5/5/Y AND IF Date is Before 10/10/Y. This works well for me. No need to add conditions to each event!

Steve Q


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[TomTom]

Instead of creating an event that constantly is checking for dates before or after and then dealing with leap years, why not just trigger on the 12:00 AM for March 1, June 1, Sept 1 and Dec 1? That keeps it pretty simple. Here's my event structure:

Doh! Thanks that is much cleaner and more efficient. I guess that thought process was from when I had four devices, but with one device, this is a MUCH better method. Thanks for taking the time to reply and teach!

I have groups that are seasonal - like HVAC-Summer, HVAC-Winter, Christmas, etc. For each of these groups I have group conditions added: For EXample; IF date is After 5/5/Y AND IF Date is Before 10/10/Y. This works well for me. No need to add conditions to each event!

Yes, I will venture into group conditions too. Great idea.Thank you!

[randy]

Instead of creating an event that constantly is checking for dates before or after and then dealing with leap years, why not just trigger on the 12:00 AM for March 1, June 1, Sept 1 and Dec 1? That keeps it pretty simple. Here's my event structure:

I thought the same thing, but the reason I didn't mention it is that his method would synchronize the virtual device, even if HomeSeer was down at midnight on a specific night. If he was to use his method, I would only suggest he add the value of the virtual device as a condition so it wouldn't needlessly retrigger. On virtual devices, that is of little concern, but it is a good habit to get into.

I realize Power Failure Recovery is an option, but for some date and time-of-day virtual devices, I make sure they are designed to synchronize any time HomeSeer is running, just in case the server was down for an extended period or if I had to restore from an older backup. Since I was always messing with my system I frequently got it out of sync when rolling back to an earlier backup.

As always, there are many ways to accomplish the same end result, it is only a matter of your criteria and your personal approach to event design.

Now that you guys have made the software so darn stable and reliable, that is much less of a concern.

[randy]

I have groups that are seasonal - like HVAC-Summer, HVAC-Winter, Christmas, etc. For each of these groups I have group conditions added: For EXample; IF date is After 5/5/Y AND IF Date is Before 10/10/Y. This works well for me. No need to add conditions to each event!

Steve Q


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That will also work. The reason I like virtual devices is that the way I name them as well as the categories I put them in makes it easy to see their current status. Your method would prevent problems caused by server downtime or rollback as I described above. An improvement to HS that would really benefit your methodology is a hierarchical structure of Event groups and subgroups, each with their own group conditions. It is something we have requested in a Bugzilla, but have yet to see. Something like

Heating Events with group conditions

Event
Event
Event

Heating Events - Seasonal with group conditions

Event
Event
Event

Heating Events - Time based with group conditions

Event
Event
Event

and so on...

Even better if the supergroup's group conditions could also be selectively be applied to the subgroups events as well.

And if we could restrict Event access on a user-by-user basis.

And if...

It is good to dream

[Steve Q]

And if we could restrict Event access on a user-by-user basis.

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This is an interesting concept! Has anyone created an event that requires a password? Should be possible? Maybe it could be done by running multiple events in a specific order. For example, open garage door if virtual devices 6 2 9 3 are ON.

Steve Q


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[TomTom]

This is an interesting concept! Has anyone created an event that requires a password? Should be possible? Maybe it could be done by running multiple events in a specific order. For example, open garage door if virtual devices 6 2 9 3 are ON.

Steve Q


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Great idea!


Sent from my iPhone

[randy]

This is an interesting concept! Has anyone created an event that requires a password? Should be possible? Maybe it could be done by running multiple events in a specific order. For example, open garage door if virtual devices 6 2 9 3 are ON.

Steve Q


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In another thread Rich said he was looking at applying user level access to events. He said it would be very tedious to apply rights on an event-by-event basis, because the interface does not allow for bulk changes, like the Device Manager does. He was thinking about another page to just deal with event rights. He then asked about doing it on a group level, to which I and another agreed that would be an adequate compromise. It was in this thread starting at post #31.

[Guest]

When do you think we’ll be able to create subgroups in events rjh?


seems like it was asked a numerous time...since 5years. But we still not have it in hs4