eggzlot Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Right now I have a custom button called vacation on and off. When I click it, it turns on the driver Always@Home (which I purchased before C4 came out with their free version) either on or off, that's it. Since I put this driver in play I've added a few more features to C4 I want to regulate when on vacation so I had 2 basic questions: 1) How does the Always@Home driver compare to the C4 one minus the factor of price? Is it worth switching to the C4 one - does it offer more features, better ability to recreate your usage, etc? 2) I now have a kitchen motion sensor. If no motion is sensed in 5 minutes, it turns the lights off. I could see the Always@Home driver turning on the kitchen lights, 5 mins later no motion, lights go off, driver turns the lights back on, etc. May look like a disco is happening in my kitchen when I am away. Would I go about adding a variable vacation=true and then somehow disengage the motion sensor in the kitchen? I already override the sensor during certain alarm sequences (my dog is locked up in the kitchen when we leave) so I could copy that over ride command but base it on vacation being set to true and vacation goes to true when button is pressed to vacation on (and off when vacation off is pressed?). Along the lines of sensors, any way to "shut them off" to preserve battery and stuff when on vacation or is that overkill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Here is no way to turn off motion sensor however your override that you have for the dog would work for your always@home issue on kitchen lighting. Somewhere you have programming changing your "dog" variables state. Simply place "dog" variable true on vacation on action and "dog" variable false on vacation off action. Always@home works wonderful for me and the "mockupancy" driver from C4 is not much different. Almost identical intact. Good luck and Happy Automating. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Lowe Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 I have not use the houselogix i know that the latest c4 mockupancy allows you to add audio and video to the mix as well as reducing the levels for av and lighting. also easy to tie into your security system arming and disarming. the motion sensing would be easy to program around, and you may change on expire, before the light turns off to check if the vacation mode is on and so it does not turn it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted June 4, 2016 Author Share Posted June 4, 2016 I just used the override I had in another part of the programming and applied it to when vacation mode turns on, and off. Should do the trick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted June 4, 2016 Author Share Posted June 4, 2016 Though I have 1 other question. At Sunset I have a few lights turn on and at a certain point at night I have some exterior lights automatically shut off. Do I have to disengage these on/off's when running Always@Home? I have a variable for vacation, so if im away vacation variable = true if no vacation vacation variable = false. So do i do "if variable vacation = false....> turn on lights at X time and off at Y time"? this way if vacation variable is true, always@home will dictate what goes on/off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 Though I have 1 other question. At Sunset I have a few lights turn on and at a certain point at night I have some exterior lights automatically shut off. Do I have to disengage these on/off's when running Always@Home? I have a variable for vacation, so if im away vacation variable = true if no vacation vacation variable = false. So do i do "if variable vacation = false....> turn on lights at X time and off at Y time"? this way if vacation variable is true, always@home will dictate what goes on/off? The vacation mode will learn this anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted June 5, 2016 Author Share Posted June 5, 2016 20 hours ago, SMHarman said: The vacation mode will learn this anyway. so you dont think having c4 say turn on/off and have always@home learn those lights will cause any conflict? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 so you dont think having c4 say turn on/off and have always@home learn those lights will cause any conflict? No my limited understanding of mockupancy is that in record mode it sweeps and records the lighting and av settings of the devices you have told it to ever 15 mins. In playback mode it plays that back with some randomization on timing. So if you program a light to come on at 7 then in playback mode mockupancy may put it on at 650 or 710 but at 710 it would always be on anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Lowe Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 mockupency allows you to choose what you want to record as well. if you have exterior lighting you may want to stick with your scheduled lighting, if anything use your vacation variable to may dimm the lights for energy efficiency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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