I recently had an interesting experience with my smart lighting setup that I thought I’d share. It all started when I wanted to ensure all my lights turned off at sunrise, specifically when my front porch light shuts off. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I decided to create a rule in Smart Lighting where all lights would turn off when the front porch light turned off. But here’s where things got a bit… creative.
I included the front porch light in the rule and also set it to ‘Turn on as well.’ Little did I know this would create an endless loop! My lights started pulsing on and off relentlessly. It was both fascinating and slightly terrifying to watch them flicker on my security cameras. I thought something was seriously wrong with my hub, especially since it’s at my remote cabin.
After some quick troubleshooting, I realized the issue was the loop I had accidentally created. The front porch light turning off triggered all lights to turn off, but since the front porch light was also included in the rule, it turned back on, restarting the cycle. I managed to stop it by switching the mode from Away to Home, but I was curious if there was a better way to handle this without causing such a commotion.
I did some research and found that setting up a more precise automation with delays or specific conditions could prevent such loops. It was a great learning experience, and now I have a better understanding of how to structure my rules to avoid these kinds of mishaps. It also made me appreciate the power of smart lighting automations when they’re set up just right!
If anyone has tips on setting up similar automations without the risk of endless loops, I’d love to hear them. It would be cool to trigger something like this through SHM as well. Happy automating everyone!