Gradually turn on lights.

[therealdb]

I'm back from a vacation and it was the first winter one with MSR.

I have a special vacation mode that's auto-setting after the house is in away mode for at least 18 hours - and that's mostly OK. In this mode, lights are turned on/off automatically, some things are off to preverse powers, etc. Thermostats are automatically set at 17C unless there's solar power. That's mostly OK, except when you have to deal with winters and clouds on the day back home.

Long story short: back from vacation, we found the house at 17C - wife wasn't impressed.

Back in the luup days I had a special override, that I forgot to port to MSR, that was basically like this in MSR (coded on the fly):

So, I could tell my system when I'm on vacation and have a last day flag to re-set the house to normal behavior before I'm back. It was just two strings variable in a virtual binary sensor.

I don't want to code this in global expressions, so I'm wondering if it's possible to accomplish this with a Virtual Device, but I'm failing to visualize the correct answer and I'm here for inspiration for what others are doing to tackle this.

I don't want to create 4 separate devices (start date, end date, status, last day) in order to keep it easy and I want to be able to change the start/end date from the UI, to simplify things. Any hint is appreciated

[CatmanV2]

An answer to a different problem I work on the basis that we can't be on vacation nearby, so the heating etc will come on as we come home anyway. Other than that I do it manually (this will not surprise you)

C

[gwp1]

Similarly I use a calendar plugin with my Hubitat that looks for a keyword in a calendar event. I set my return time to a couple hours ahead of flight arrivals/driving time that flips the house from legit VACA to AWAY.

[therealdb]

@CatmanV2 we have a full electric house and it takes time for the heat pump to start and be sure efficient.
even if the weather was typically nice when we were away (9-18C), on the day back home it was cloudy (4-11C). anyway, I'll probably go with a rule to start and then port it over to a virtual device.

[Pabla]

Here's what I think you could do. Create a rule and in the rule and set the trigger for the time period you're on vacation for.

Then in the reaction group add your vacation actions ie setting thermostat low, lights on off etc. Then add another sub group in there for the day before you arrive. This will go true the day before you arrive and the actions can be set to whatever you need, in this case turning the heat back up.

Hope this helps somewhat

Note: the screenshot I posted shows a time period not a date range but its the same idea

[CatmanV2]

@therealdb ahh yes. We have antediluvian gas.....

C