When starting home automation here’s a hot tip:
USE HELPERS! What do I mean? Say you are going on vacation. Suddenly you have to disable dozens of automations - lights, thermostat, security.
Create helpers. A basic “Is Vacation Mode” can be put for automations thay shouldnt run on vacation in the conditions section.
Even something you do regularly, like go to work, may siddenly require to be off ie if you’re sick. Use a calendar to help organize helpers - for example create a dedicated google calendar that is normally hidden and create “Vacation” as an event when you’re on vacation or “Sick” so your thermostat will automate since youre home but your car wont start precooling.
Helpers help you in the end!
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@viking_da_mann Love this tip—thinking in “modes” (Vacation / Sick / Away) is one of the cleanest ways to keep automations maintainable as your setup grows.
In Aqara terms, this maps really nicely to how automation linkages are structured: you build an “if… then…” rule, where the “if” side is your trigger/conditions and the “then” side is the action(s). This information comes from community discussions and user experience summaries and may vary by environment. Please verify carefully. Original post link: N/A
A practical way to apply your “helper” idea in Aqara is to use system-level guarding modes (Home / Away / Night) as a kind of master switch for behavior, since they’re mutually exclusive and designed exactly for scenario switching (e.g., Away when no one’s home, Night for bedtime). This information comes from community discussions and user experience summaries and may vary by environment. Please verify carefully. Original post link: N/A
If you’re up for sharing more, I think folks would benefit from:
- A screenshot/example of one automation where your “Vacation Mode” condition prevents it from running
- Which routines you “gate” first (thermostat, lighting, security, etc.) and why
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Absolutely! So in the attached image, I have an automation that detects when I start a work meeting. Since my meetings can be at any moment, randomly, and we have a toddler and I work from home, I have an automation that will send her a notification to her phone that I have started a work meeting so she knows to not let our son run into my room and to not vacuum or other loud activities.
But who would want my teams status to accidentally trigger if I’m sick, or we’re on vacation? If I’m sick and I log in to just check my status I don’t want all my work related notifications, so all my work related notifications have a helper that I can set to “ON” if we are on vacation or the work related automations should not run.
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