5 min read

The Animus Heart comes with useful tools out of the box. One of the tools is Automations. It is a great tool to automate routines or schedule events.
In coming blog posts there will be more examples of useful automations. This blog post however, covers the possibilities and features of the Automations tool.

 

Where to find the Automations tool

Automations can be created both from the smartphone apps and desktop interface. In iOS and Android apps the Automation hApp icon can be found on the bottom main menu bar, while on the desktop version you have the icon on the left hand side main menu.
 

 

How does the Automations tool work

The basic logic behind automations in Animus Heart follows a three step flow:

WHEN
This is the trigger of your automation. Here you can choose a specific schedule to act as a trigger or when a devices does something. For example, when smoke is detected on my smoke sensor, I want this to trigger my automation.

Note: It is possible to add more than one triggers, with an “OR” function that appears after the first trigger is chosen.

AND
And sets a criteria on the trigger that has to be met. For example, I could schedule a trigger to happen tomorrow at 6AM, and set the criteria, [AND: Time is between 6AM – 7AM]. What this means is that the trigger can only be triggered during 6AM-7AM tomorrow. You can add more than one ‘AND’ criteria.

THEN
Explains what will happen. For example turning your lights on to a certain color, sending notifications to your phone, triggering webhooks and more. Different devices have different actions that can be triggered.

 

Features on Automations

  • Schedule: The scheduler can be used in the first step of the flow, when. It could trigger something once or repeat hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. You can also choose to customize your schedule.
  • Devices: Possible devices appear automatically as soon as they are added to your Animus Heart. You can use the devices either for triggering automations or for different actions. Again, it automatically does the work of sorting what can be done and what cannot.
  • Time: Be even more specific by adding a certain time to any automation. If you prefer having a certain interval, i.e an event happening during the night, you can set a start time and end time.
  • Presence: Let Animus Heart detect whether you or your connected family members are at home or away and activate a certain set of actions.
  • Webhook: With this feature you can have your home trigger an event that goes to a certain Web URL. 
  • Alarms: Some devices have alarm notifications, these alarm notifications can be used to act as triggers when, for example, a device is being tampered with.  
  • Comparison operations: Some devices will allow you to use the comparison operation as a trigger. This can be used when you want to get notified when the battery level is less then 10%, or when the temperature exceeds 24°C. Available operators are;  [= equal], [> more than] and [< less than].
  • Notification: When a trigger has occurred you can notify yourself or anyone with access to the Animus Heart with a message. If the coffee machine has brewed the coffee you can have a notification sent to your partner reminding him/her to bring it to you 😉
  • Automation Name: When creating a new automation it has the default name “New automation”. You are able to name the automation as you wish.
  • Test automation: You can test an automation by clicking the Test button. This will trigger all your actions, it will not check any other parameters.
  • Activate/Deactivate automation: At any time you can activate or deactivate the automation by changing its switch in the automations list.
  • Activity logs: You can access the activity logs of your automations in the “Activity” tab, next to the Automations list. Here you can see when an automation was triggered, what happened and if it was successful or not.
  • Day/Night: Put conditions and allow automations to only trigger during daytime or night.
  • Grouping: Group Automations into groups for a better overview.

 

Lastly, save your automation before closing it and enjoy!

 

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