HomeKit Preventing HomeKit Automations From Overriding

[Mitchla]

I turn on the dining room light. 20 minutes later a scheduled HomeKit event turns off the dining room light. So is there a way to have manual choices take precedence over automations? Thanks very much.

 

[Itinj24]

I turn on the dining room light. 20 minutes later a scheduled HomeKit event turns off the dining room light. So is there a way to have manual choices take precedence over automations? Thanks very much.

One option here is to go into the automation’s settings and temporarily disable it.
Another option is to get a motion sensor and have it turn on the lights when it detects motion after the time the automation to shut them off begins. Then you can do another automation to turn them back off when it stops detecting motion.
Automations are just that. They don’t care what you do manually. All they know is to perform a certain task using a certain trigger(s) that you created. All my automations are set to fire when I know they won’t be conflicting with anything. For example, my “good night” automation is set to fire after my normal bed time but I have the option to do it earlier manually if I so choose. It’s just there as a backup in case i pass out and forget.

There may be a solution in Shortcuts if you convert the automation to a Shortcut but I imagine this would be complex if even possible using “If” statements and such. Try fiddling with it I guess.

 

[waw74]

it sounds like you've got an automation that says "at 9pm turn off the dining room"
if you sit down at 8:45, it will go off halfway though dinner.

If you get the Eve app, you can add conditions to triggers. (App link)
The app works for all homekit devices, you don't need any eve devices. It's just a second front end to the home app, and has more options.

One way I've worked around stuff like this is using the actual value as a "lock"
although I've not done it in homekit / Eve.

What I mean by "lock" is I'll set a light to 98% instead of 100.
you'll probably not notice a difference in lighting levels in the room
you can then set a condition on the automation so it won't trigger if the dining room is at 98%

You could make a "dinner" scene that would set the light to your "locked" level.
you could also use a light (or any other homekit device) elsewhere as the lock, so when you play the dinner scene, it will also turn the kitchen off. and then the automation will not trigger when the kitchen is off

you could also get a motion sensor, as suggested above, and set the automation to "at 9pm if motion is off". although that could also be a bit hit or miss, since eating dinner normally doesn't involve a lot of big motions to trigger the sensor.

 

[Arran]

I have a native Hue routine to slowly fade out the downstairs lights at midnight. It takes 30 minutes for everything to go fully dark - which serves as an “early warning” if we’re still up.

Other than that, all I can suggest is making your automation switch off later? Or maybe have the automation not touch certain key lights you use frequently. You can create a second automation to turn them (and everything else) off later.

 

[Mitchla]

Thanks for the good tips, everybody. I'll give 'em a try. Cheers...