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[rcb923]

I have a Motion Sensor (D1) to trigger my
porch lights,
Front light(E1)and back light(E2), both are
controlled by Deco wall switches. I have 2
macros, one for D1 ON and another for D1
OFF. Both E1 and E2 switch modules have
timers to turn ON at Dusk and OFF at Dawn,
these seem to work OK.
The D1 ON macro brightens E1 to 100% delays
15 seconds then brighten E2 to 100%.
The D1 OFF macro has a 2 minute delay, Dims
E1 to 50%; delay 2 minutes then Dims E2 to
50%. These work OK.

The problem is I want them to work ONLY at
night.
I added a simple condition to both macros.
I've tried using "Between Hours" (17:00 -
02:00), "Dusk/Dawn" and the "Nighttime"
condition. But, the lights will trigger 24
hours a day or not at all.

[mike]

X10Pro wrote
"No dueling macros -- the first condition
that's true will be the one that runs."

My first attempt at a SmartMacro seemed to
defy that with both the if/then and else
Macros running with a single trigger. I
tried to replicate it with a simple test
case added to an empty file and initially
observed only the first Macro (with its
conditions met) in the if/then, else chain
running. Playing with it a bit, I managed
to get both the if/then and else Macros to
run on only a single trigger event.

It turned out that when the else macro had
no conditions and its first step was a
delay, that both the if/then and else
macros ran. Try this setup;

Continued in next post.

[mike]

Continued from previous post

House code A monitored
Dimmer module (WS12A) set to A1. Macro
trigger A2.

If/then Macro
If Module A1 = Off
Dim A1 by 50%

Else Macro
Delay (I tried 1 sec, 5 sec and 1 min)
Turn A1 Off

Expected behavior: First trigger from Palm
Pad should turn lamp A1 on and dim to 50% ,
second trigger should delay and then turn
lamp A1 off. Sequence should repeat with
additional triggers.
Observed behavior with a single trigger:
Lamp A1 turns on, dims to 50% and turns off
after the delay configured in the Else
macro. The else macro always ran regardless
of whether the if/then ran. (Also tested by
first turning on lamp A1 with Palm Pad
before triggering A2)

Continued in next post

[mike]

Continued from previous post


Remove the delay at the start of the Then
macro and the expected behavior occurred.
With the delay in place adding a condition
to the else macro got even more
interesting. The condition of the else
macro only seemed to get evaluated when the
if/then macro module A1 off condition was
not met. If the if/then macro ran, the else
macro ran regardless of whether it's
condition was met. If the if/then didn't
run due to it's condition code not being
satisfied, the else macro ran only when
it's condition was met.

Hope that makes sense. I've either got a
flaky cm15a or there's an "undocumented
feature" associated with a delay at the
start of an else macro. This was tested
both with the cm15a connected to the pc and
standalone.

PLEASE do NOT change this behavior unless
we get some way to halt (not just restart)
a running macro. I've identified simple
tasks I can't figure out any other way to
get working without this behavior. Example:
Without a 2 way module, when motion is
sensed, turn on and dim a lamp, turn off
after a delay but restart the delay without
redimming the lamp each time motion is
sensed again. I can't put the delay and
lamp off in the if/then or it will complete
and turn off the lamp even if additional
motion is sensed. Without this behavior the
else macro will never execute so putting
the delay and off there doesn't work when
motion is only sensed once.

Mike

[harry]

Is it just me or does using the Time Range
in SmartMacro behave differently than using
two Specific Times that create the same
condition? I have a conditional macro
triggered by a motion sensor to light a
light in the kitchen and turn it off after
a few minutes. The macro contains two else
conditions. Basically from 11P to 5A the
light dims to 50%, from 5A to 9A it lights
to 100% and from dusk to 11P it lights to
100%. I could not get this to work with the
Time Range condition but it works fine
using Specific Times and giving a time
after and a time before.

[Henri T]

Harry ...
I think you have to make 3 macros instead
of 2 because one of them use a time range
that overlaps two days !

According to the tests I have made, you can
not specify a time range covering a lap of
time before and after midnight !