Simple light timer help

#1

Hello guys, I’m new to Smartthings and Webcore. Trying to read a lot on here and ST forums for my beginner smart lighting scenario. Here’s in a nut shell what I want to do, and then I’ll show you how I set it up with limited success. I work at night, (leave house 5pm), so I would like my living room lights to come on (hue smart lamps through a Hue hub) at 8pm. I would like them to shut off at 2am. I get home about 6am, not that that matters. Here was my first attempt, and the lights never came on.

home%20lighting
home lighting.PNG826×594 12.3 KB

That however did not turn my lights on when I checked them at while I was at work.

So I came up with this then.

lights%203
lights 3.png1178×882 79.6 KB

The premise was the same but this time instead of setting up an away work routine (which just meant if my phone was not home during 6p-6a then activate away work routine), this time I skipped ST routine and just said in the piston if my phone was not present at home turn light on at 8pm, and it did it. Hooray me, lol. However I wanted it to shut both lamps off at 2.00am or if I should come home early from work it my phone was detected as present at home, then shut one of the lamps off.
Well, it would shut lights off. So I got part of it going. Can you please help me grasp what I should be doing instead.

Thank you, I appreciate the assistance guys.

#2

Just occurred to me by looking at this again, the second piston, the second part, at 2am if my phone is present then shut off the lights. Well my phone isn’t gonna be present at 2 am, since I’m at work, so it wouldn’t shut off. So that may actually fix that. Does that piston otherwise look like it would work if I change that? Also, your thoughts on the first piston, what I do wrong with that one that it wouldn’t work?

#3

First, welcome to webcore.
Second, presence sensors notoriously do not work well. So keep that in mind when debugging.
In your “Every day at 2 am” the “presence changes to present” will not work. If you want the bulb to go off at 2 am when you are not present, then change the If :

If Presence Sensor is not present
then with bulb 4
turn off

#4

Thanks for reply, would you recommend I not use a presence sensor, (my phone) and use something else to trigger this simple light timer?

#5

Several people use presence sensors and they work very well, even with webcore. But others, myself included, have had variable results with them. I use presence sensors in my webcore/Smartthings programming but only for non-critical functions. Many here will advise you NOT to use them to unlock doors and the like.

#6

Interesting, thanks for heads up on that.

#7

I would try the following:

IF
-Time happens daily at 8:00:00 PM
-And
-Presence Sensor 1’s presence is ‘not present’

THEN
-with
–RGB Bulb 3 and RGB Bulb 4
–do
–Turn On

END IF

Place the times within the IF statements. That always works for me.