Programming for the cleaning lady

[Adidaswood]

scenario:  The cleaning lady comes every Wednesday, mid morning.  I work out of the house.  I get up in the morning have my coffee and set my work scene for the day as I walk into my office.  When the cleaning lady shows up she hits a thousand buttons and doesn't know what does what.  

So I want her to come in hit the Clean the House button, which I have just set up for her.  It turns every light in the house on, so she can clean.  I would like it if it would go back to the way it was when she hits the button on her way our.  

So I setup a macro that would set a variable toggle to true, if true take a snapshot and then activate the scene.  When she leaves she hits the button.  It toggles to false, then if false it restores the snapshot, boom my office is just how it was and all the other lights are back off.

so far so good.

Now my wife used her phone to turn that scene on and it didn't revert, it doesn't run the macro, its just activating the scene.  

Here's the rub, I can't seem to figure out how to get the snapshot done before the scene activates when using other navigators.  I was trying to use "When the Scene is invoked" run the macro, but by the time the snapshot happens the lights are already on.  At least that is what I think is happening.

anyone have any thoughts?

[sonic30101]

Maybe need to use a custom button that does the snapshot then initiates the scene

[Adidaswood]

I had thought of hiding the scene from the navigators and using a custom button.  I think that would work for a voice scene too which my wife really likes to use a lot.

Wanted to see if there was any other ideas.  

also curious for science and pure self education.

[brucecampbell]

Just thinking out loud here;

Alternatively, if you prefer to use a scene rather than custom button, you could perhaps look at a 'dummy' scene.

I'm not sure if you would require a 'dummy' dimmer/switch to allow the invoke to trigger - I have not tested this out....

Hide the true scene, make visible the dummy scene, and then just add your code to the dummy scene's invoke / active / deactivate ....

 

 

[jfh]

I do something similar, but all code is triggered off the Boolean variable state.  If cleaning true/if cleaning false.

i also program every switch the cleaners have a tendency to hit to do nothing if cleaning is true.

 

i use voice activation to turn cleaning mode on / off, but you could put it on a custom button.

[jfh]

** deleted duplicate post **

[livitup]

I ask this already knowing full well what the answer will be...

Any chance of "modifying" the wife's behavior?  For example, if you could get her to use a custom button (also available in iOS/Android navigators), then the custom button could run your macro.  I don't know of a way to take a snapshot based on a scene trigger, without the snapshot occurring after the scene is set/active.

[South Africa C4 user]

7 hours ago, brucecampbell said:

Just thinking out loud here;

Alternatively, if you prefer to use a scene rather than custom button, you could perhaps look at a 'dummy' scene.

I'm not sure if you would require a 'dummy' dimmer/switch to allow the invoke to trigger - I have not tested this out....

Hide the true scene, make visible the dummy scene, and then just add your code to the dummy scene's invoke / active / deactivate ....

 

 

Something like this would work...

[South Africa C4 user]

7 hours ago, jfh said:

I do something similar, but all code is triggered off the Boolean variable state.  If cleaning true/if cleaning false.

i also program every switch the cleaners have a tendency to hit to do nothing if cleaning is true.

 

i use voice activation to turn cleaning mode on / off, but you could put it on a custom button.

Can also use a schedule to set the variable...

[Adidaswood]

Thanks guys let me think a couple of these scenarios over and see if I can make them work.