Another Rule Engine Question

Hi James, Ruler of the Rule Engine! This is s a non-urgent request for help.

I have a Virtual Switch tile that turns on if I manually change the setting for the ecobee thermostat. Sometimes if the house feels chilly I’ll crank the thermostat set point up a degree or two. The purpose of the tile is to remind me to resume ecobee’s program before bedtime so the furnace doesn’t run all night. The rule (currently in Hubitat) is triggered if “heat set point changes” (available as a Hero attribute) .

Of course the tile will also turn on when the program switches from Home to Sleep, for example, as the heat point will change at program transitions.

I recently challenged myself to see if I could use the same tile to cause the ecobee to resume it’s program when the tile is pressed.

“Resume program” is an available attribute, so my approach was to create a rule in SmartTools RE that issues that command, and then turns the switch off. Oh - not so clever, Stan! When “resume program” is issued the heat set point is changed, turning the switch right back on.

I’ve been unable to figure a way to accomplish the automation. What’s needed is the ability to distinguish the difference between manual changes to heat set point versus the change to heat set point caused by changes to the program. None of the thermostat attributes relate to program changes. I’ve concluded “it can’t be done”, but wonder if you can think of a way.

As mentioned above, this not urgent!

Thanks.

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I’m not @James, Ruler of the Rule Engine, but I wonder if you could work around it by delaying the off() command on the switch.

thermostat.resumeProgram()
wait 30 seconds //or whatever value makes sense here
switch.off()
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@Stan_Silverman, unfortunately, there’s no attribute from ecobee to tell if it is running on scheduled mode or was manually set to “hold” the specific cooling/heating set point. And I can’t think of a decent way to do so in RE. You can follow what @josh suggested to delay the VS off so it will turn the VS off until next heating point changes, or you may want to change your ecobee’s hold duration preference. Ex: I prefer it to resume schedule when it’s time for next activity so I can manually tap the dashboard to adjust the temperature and it will resume at our bed time or next scheduled activity in ecobee’s app.

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Thanks Josh. The delay doesn’t seem to help, even after a 60 second delay.

Many thanks for the suggestions, James. I think the easiest thing for us is to continue using the switch as a reminder to tap the thermostat to resume program - or just yell, “Alexa, ask ecobee to resume program”,