Are homey flows "stupid"

I have something similar running for my Hallway lights.
20:20 = turn ON
06:20 = turn OFF
… and it’s running without issues so far.

The Advanced Scheduler is now in review for publish in the app store. Many improvements has been implemented since this post. Stay tuned. :slight_smile:

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Congrats, you saved one extra flow!
24x60x12 = 17280 triggers switching the light a day ,
You could have saved 17,278 triggers and switches as these where useless…
Don’t complain after adding some lights Homey or your Zigbee/ zwave / wifi network is becomming slow.
Although it works for you now,
Guess you won the Stupid flows award.!

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I guess that answers the question in the topic title :rofl:

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Thank You kind citizen !

Pls note it is nothing personal, the fact you are here, read and share implies for me you are willing to learn.
I just want to prevent you and others bringing their Homey’s to its knees

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Usually, when I see something wrong, if I feel the need to engage, I stop, I explain, and move on.
After all that is why we are here.
No need to label a stranger or an action as stupid. There is no value in doing so.
The value lies in your effort to help and should stop there.

As for the flow, is running ok for more than a year. Homey is part of a separate vlan, along with all the other smart things, outside the main network, in a Ubiguiti setup. Any “network” that is bogged down by a request every 5s, should be upgraded.

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You could always check if this suits your requirements: Homey Community Store

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You can probably also cross a railroad without checking for trains every day for a year if the track is not used frequently. Until one day it hits you… (pun intended). I don’t recommend it to anyone.

What is also weird about your implementation is that it’s kind of a “Computer says No” implementation: Let’s say it’s a rainy day and it’s dark. You can try to turn the light back on during the day but Homey will keep turning it off. That would decrease the WAF close to zero in my home. Automation should never overrule the user IMO, unless it’s for safety.

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Struts said: “you could trigger other flows through a flow”

I use this approach. It has caused me no end of frustration that home automation systems (not only Homey) use triggers to evaluate function execution instead of cyclic condition check like you find in industrial plc systems. Simple OR conditions are not available, it all relies on triggers. As I struggled with increasing flow complexity I was forced to rethink my approach. Now I have one flow folder where inputs are read, these flows only trigger other flows. Then I have one folder for each room or zone where logic is performed, these flows also only trigger other flows. And finally one folder for outputs where flows are triggered by the logic flows. Not quite industrial plc level, but less confined than the simple trigger approach. FlowComments also makes it easy to backtrack flows.

Cheers

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So basically you created your own triggers? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

My Flow Event Bus app was created to implement a similar idea: inputs emit events, and events trigger other flows. It adds an additional layer of abstraction compared to your setup (where inputs trigger other flows) to implement even more loose coupling.

Your app sounds interesting, I will have a look :slightly_smiling_face:

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Sounds interesting. Could you post an basic sample?

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They should take a look at smartthings app. You can order the rooms in the app, and you can set automations and flows separately.
That is perfect.
Please athom do it

Hi Christer!

I get your frustration here!
I found the best solution for this specific problem to be an app called «timer». It lets you (if i remember correctly) have a certain light on for a predefined amount of time before it turnes it of, using only one flow.

Hope this is helpful!

// Cheggen

Let them know! I don’t expect they read the forum.

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@cortinaman Looks like you’re ready for H.O.O.P.
Create flows how you like it / need it. Just released.
(And no, I don’t get money for this. Just a happy user)

Use as trigger:
IF: Every 1 minute
AND: time between: x and x (AND light is OFF as extra)
THEN: TURN light on
ELSE: Turn light off

This should do the trick you intented with 1 flow

Thank you.

With the “every min” part, does it makes homey.app work harder?

not really, only when it actually does something every minute.

In your case it only checks every minute if it meets the set params, only when these are met (it is between x and x) then it switches it on.
Outside the x and x it will set the light OFF, this also only wil be executed if the light is actually on, homey only changes the state of the device if it has a different state as it is curruntly set.

I have many crons running (crons are time triggers) every X min do that etc
These crons are not a lot of load for Homey…