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Timer reset/start


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I've programmed a timer for when my garage door and when the door from laundry room opens into garage that turns on a light connected to a Control4 plug in switch outlet (the one that plugs into an outlet with 2 plug ins on it).

It seems that every time the timer resets (say the door is opened again before the timer expires) the light flick off then back on quickly. 

Isn't a timer reset just supposed to put the timer back at the max (in this case 3 minutes) without "stopping" the timer which in my case turns off the light?

 

Also, in the AGENTS programming for TIMERS what is the REPEATING box for that can be checked?  Does that just mean the timer automatically cycles over and over without being restarted or reset?

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Timer:

RESET sets timer to zero and starts it running

START has the timer start wherever it last stopped

STOP is more a pause that stops the timer from running further (but does NOT set it back to zero.

 

Yes this could perhaps have been named clearer but this has beent his way forever.

 

if you want something to trigger when the timer has run it's cycle you program agains EXPIRED

 

And yes, repeating means it will cycle untill 'manually' stopped. EXPIRE will then trigger every time it runs it's set time.

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So I think my issue is I was using RESET when the motion sensor was triggered or the door was opened.  That would STOP timer (turn off the light) and START (turn on) the light. 

So I should use the START command only it would appear.   If the timer is already running, START would put the timer back to maximum and not affect the light status correct?

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I think I figured out the issue.... So by using RESET I was essentially moving the timer to zero (expiring in a sense) so that was turning my light off.  Then it would restart the timer and turn the light back on all within a few seconds. 

Now by using START, it seems to have cleared up the issue as the light doesn't turn off and then back on by using RESET.  I'm just going to have the timer expire after 3 minutes at which time the light will turn off.

I thought that RESET would just up the timer back to the maximum amount but not affect the events based on EXPIRE or STOP. 

I found this which explains the issue I was having though I think Control4 will have to do a bit more to clean up this command set.

START will "restart" the timer without affecting the event.  RESET will STOP and then START again with maximum time.  So if you have it programmed to do something when the timer "stops" the RESET command will affect that but START will not.

 

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I do something similar with my garage light.  I found it best to turn the light off when the timer expires.  I then reset the timer each time the door is opened.  This way, if you find you have to go back into the house, when you go back to the garage, you will have a full 3 minutes of light.  Otherwise, you may find yourself in the dark unexpectedly sometimes.  I also installed LED lights in the garage and set the timer to like 10 minutes.  This way, if I am waiting for the family to finish getting out the door, I am not in the dark while shuffling around the garage.  Good luck.

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Originally I had it programmed to just RESET the timer every time either the laundry room door into the garage or the garage motion sensor were triggered but that was causing the light to turn off and right back on if the light was already on. 

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Originally I had it programmed to just RESET the timer every time either the laundry room door into the garage or the garage motion sensor were triggered but that was causing the light to turn off and right back on if the light was already on. 

But what is your light off and on trigger?

 

Because that's likely where this is going wrong. if you set the light to go off on STOP, then yes it would do that, as I put above though, it should be done on EXPIRE.

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I had that programmed so any stopping of the timer would cause it turn off the light.

As mentioned, you probably should stick to EXPIRE as your trigger.  You could use STOP (triggered by motion or another door state) as some sort of override to keep the light ON.  Other than that, I see no reason to incorporate STOP the way you are.

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