Is there a way to STOP a macro once it has started? Since SmartThings doesn’t have Gentle Wake Up in the new app, I was going to see if this would fill the gap. Gentle Wake Up allowed you to cancel the process by turning the light off. I don’t see a way to do that w/ SharpTools. If my light starts to come on in the morning, but I’m not getting up at the normal time for some reason, I need to be able to turn the light off and have it stay off.
Hi @Scott_Hughes, welcome to the community. Fade_level macro doesn’t support the exit condition at this point, but it is indeed in my list, so you feedback is import to us. I will need to think about what should be included in the exit condition support, so please let me know if you have a different exit scenario then checking the fading device’s specific attribute, such as switch, status. Thanks.
Good to know it’s being looked at. As far as scenarios, I know the old SmartThings app had more options, but the only use case I had is that sunrise simulation. I don’t get up at the same time every day, so I actually had a routine that ran on my phone using AutoMagic (RIP) which would inspect my upcoming alarms, and start the Gentle Wake process a few minutes before my alarm went off. It was a great setup, but if I forgot that my wife was not going to work that day, I needed a way to cancel the process. Just turning it off was the obvious solution and was fortunately accommodated in the SmartApp.
I imagine there will be someone who would want to tie it to some other trigger, but I can’t think of anything else I would do. I heard someone recently who had triggers based on opening/closing his bedroom door. Same case w/ motion sensors, could be when a sensor in the bathroom detects motion, you cancel the macro? I would think a switch trigger would get you 99% of the way there for just about any scenario, even if things like closure devices & motion sensors would need to be coded for separately - it would be easy enough to create a virtual switch and a separate rule to say [if motion detected, then toggle VSwitch] or something like that.
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Hey @Scott_Hughes - I moved this post into the Feature Requests category so other users can vote to show their interest and comment to add their feedback. Be sure to scroll up to the first post and cast your vote so your interest in counted!
Hi, just checking in to see if this has moved any on the to-do list. I’m looking at getting my morning lights routine working again, and can’t use the fade up without a cancel ability without causing marital trouble. 
Thanks.
I don’t have any update for this item yet, though we actually mentioned this one during our internal discussion early this week. Let’s see if we can some more votes to bump it up in the priority list.
If you’re in a ST region that supports Labs (US for sure) they have the gentle wake up there.
Open SmartThings app > m
Menu (in bottom right) > Labs > Gentle Wake Up
The Labs > Gentle wake-up feature is a step in the right direction, but it’s far too rigid. It uses a set wake-up time. I use Tasker to kick off the wake-up routine based on the alarm time on my phone that changes day to day (here’s the old ver that used Automagic which sadly is now defunct: [HOW TO] Gentle Wake Up Triggered by Android Alarm (with Automagic & SharpTools) - Projects & Stories - SmartThings Community). AFAIK, with the Gentle wake-up feature, I would have to manually go into the ST app every night and update the wakeup time based on when I’m getting up the follow morning. That’s not a viable solution for me.
And even if I could automate when Gentle wake-up started, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have a way to cancel the process in the middle either. (the original ver in the old ST app did allow you to cancel the process by turning the light off)
I just went and actually looked at the details of it. You are correct that it missing functionality from the previous app and is basically useless! Sorry.
I set up a dimming routine that runs for 3 hours. I may want to turn that light off during the dimming period but I can’t see a way to override the dimming routine.
I used a tasker routine to manage my wakeup routine. I have a loop that increments the brightness level over 30 minutes. It includes a check to see if the light was turned off. If the light is turned off, the loop exits immediately. That’s the only solution I’ve found that works the way I want it to.
I’m with you, but my wife wants to be able to turn them back to 100% and not have to fight continued dimming.
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Ha ha. My wife has the same interest, and if she had her way there would be no dimming, so that is why I snuck in a 50% reduction over 3 hours! Worked great until we turned off the lights about 2 thirds into the cycle
Any updates on this, I’d like to cancel a fade when my mode changed to night.
Or how do I found out more about creating a tasker routine?
I vote for this feature as well. I have a dim function on my kitchen lights if no motion is detected for 5 minutes. On motion, the lights set to the preset level depending on the time of day (100% or 20%). The dim function will start the dimming process, but if the motion trigger fires the lights will jump to the preset level then continue to dim even though motion is detected. I need the fade function to exit once the motion trigger is activated. I would like to know how to do this using a tasker routine as well. If a workaround is available I can go with that.
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Please make sure you scroll up and cast a vote. While comments are helpful for getting clarification on your use-case, they do not count as votes.
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Please make sure you scroll up and cast a vote. While comments are helpful for getting clarification on your use-case, they do not count as votes.
Thanks, I did not realize that. Voted!
As you can only fade one light at a time, then surely if any routine (or manual operation) alters the state of that light the fade process should be stopped as the most recent operation/request should take precedence. (IMHO)
Does anyone know what happens if a fade is progress and another fade process on that light is started?
The challenge with that is there’s not a great way to identify an event from a manual operation versus one from an automated operation. From the ‘fade level’ perspective it’s just calculating a series of setLevel() operations and sending those as needed. And while those will generate level change events in most cases, the source smart home platform (SmartThings, Hubitat, etc) doesn’t tag those events in any special way so there’s not a direct way to track where they came from.
That being said, I’ve seen other approaches like the ‘cancellation token’ where when you start a fade level operation, it creates a ‘token’ that you can later use to tell the system to stop that operation.
Per the original poster’s comment, I could possibly see a configuration option where the fade level operation could be stopped by certain events like the associated switch attribute explicitly changing to ‘off’… but reacting to level attribute changes is probably harder to disambiguate intention.
IIRC, they both get queued up. So it’s possible to have two fade level sequences running in parallel.