I'm attempting to streamline my v4 setup into v5.

One of the features I was looking forward to was multiple conditions, so I started with my motion sensors.

The DOCS state:

A simple example might be a motion sensor triggering a light - you might want motion detected by the motion sensor to turn on a light, but only between the hours of 6pm and 11pm. You can currently do that by creating a schedule that enables a trigger at 6pm and another one that disables the trigger at 11pm. But that's 3 moving parts (two schedules and the trigger). Using a condition, you can reduce that to just a single trigger and the following condition...

The trouble is that any automation regarding lights [ON] doesn't involve a static Time, they involve ±Sunset. And any automation regarding lights [OFF] doesn't involve a static Time, they involve ±Sunrise.

6pm in the winter is wildly different to 6pm in the summer, so for 11.75 months a year the timing is off!

I'm currently using 2 scheduled variables [±Sunset] [±Sunrise] and a trigger from the motion sensor.

Is there a way to duplicate this using conditions? Do we need more condition options?

You're assuming that everyone's needs are the same as yours - in fact, the vast majority of users seem to be quite happy with static times in conditions. So I assume If daylight/If dark isn't granular enough for you (which are calculated based on sunrise/sunset for your location)?

I should also point out that you can combine multiple conditions - so for instance you can say "If dark" AND "If current time is between 6pm and 6am" for instance - so triggers that fire when it's dark outside between 6pm-6am will fire. So if it's summer and doesn't get dark until 8pm then the trigger will effectively only fire between 8pm and 6am (assuming it's dark until after 6am).

jay (support) wrote:...So I assume If daylight/If dark isn't granular enough for you (which are calculated based on sunrise/sunset for your location)?

Unfortunately Indigo isn't smart enough to account for mountains, trees, or other obstacles. So the window of change from "enough light in the room" to "room dark" is very short <5 minutes.

I currently use Sunset [-20], which puts me in that sweet zone everyday, so it doesn't seem that v5 offers a different option using conditions.

Thanks

Continue using your custom variable for sunset/sunrise tracking if that is needed. The multi-condtiional UI adds the ability to create complex and nested conditionals from all sorts of data including Indigo device states, variable values, and specific times. I'd venture to say it is probably the most powerful conditional UI available in any home automation software. That doesn't mean it can or will provide the ability to do everything that one might need, such as this case. But that is where the flexibility of Indigo variables can be used if needed. And if we get a bunch more requests for this then maybe the UI will be added for it in a future version. But so far it isn't really on the radar.

Have you tried using the dawn/dusk sensing that's built in to the INSTEON Motion Sensor? The threshold is adjustable and should send ON/OFF on group 2 when it senses the change.

No HA software that I know of can exactly calculate daylight/dark at every point on the map so I guess no HA software is "smart enough".