Rules can act by the clock, by the sun and by the calendar. This page explains which clock, which place and which calendar they use, so that “at 07:00” and “on public holidays” mean what you expect.
Two time zones
| Used by | Time zone |
|---|---|
| Triggers A time of day and Days of the month | Your organisation’s time zone: Settings > General > Timezone. |
| Conditions A time window, Months or dates, A public holiday; the Next time shown in the card | The place’s time zone: the time zone of the rule’s home asset, or for a device home, of the nearest asset above the device. A place without a time zone uses UTC. |
| Sunrise or sunset, Day or night | The place’s location; the times are absolute, no time zone needed. |
Important
Keep the organisation’s time zone and the time zone of your sites the same, or set every site’s time zone. A rule “at 07:00, only if between 06:30 and 07:30” fires at 07:00 organisation time and checks the window in site time. If the two differ, the condition can stop the run. Set the site’s time zone on the asset (see Locations and time zones).
Daylight saving is followed. A time that does not exist on the day the clocks go forward does not fire.
Time of day
A time of day fires at HH:MM on the chosen weekdays (1 = Monday to 7 = Sunday), or every day when none is chosen.
Sunrise and sunset
- The trigger fires at sunrise or sunset at the place, plus minutes after (negative: before): −180 to 180 minutes. Example: sunset −15 switches lights on a quarter of an hour before sunset.
- Optional weekdays limit the days it fires.
- The times are computed for the place’s latitude and longitude, to about a minute.
- The place needs a location. Set latitude and longitude on the home asset (for a device home, on the nearest asset above the device). Without it the rule cannot be saved: “Sunrise and sunset need this place’s location: set it on the place first.”
- On days without a sunrise or sunset (polar day or night) the trigger does not fire, and Day or night is false.
The Day or night condition says It is day between today’s sunrise and sunset, It is night otherwise.
Days of the month
The trigger Days of the month fires at a time on chosen days of the month (1 to 31), in chosen months, or on chosen weekdays. You may not combine days of the month and weekdays (“Choose days of the month or days of the week, not both.”). A day that does not exist in a month (the 31st of April) is simply skipped.
Examples:
| Want | Set |
|---|---|
| 06:00 on the 1st of every month | day 1, every month, at 06:00 |
| 08:00 on every day in summer | months June, July, August, at 08:00 |
| 07:00 on Mondays in January | weekday Monday, month January, at 07:00 |
Date windows
The condition Months or dates checks today’s date at the place:
- months: today is in one of them,
- days of the month: today is one of them,
- Between two dates: From and Until as month-day (
MM-DDin JSON), both days included.
A window may cross the new year: from 11-01 until 02-28 holds from 1 November to 28 February. All parts you set must hold, so “months June–August and days 1–7” means the first week of each summer month.
Typical uses: a heating schedule only in winter, irrigation only in the growing season, a different setpoint in summer (two rules with opposite windows, or one rule with Choose by a condition).
Public holidays
The condition A public holiday reads your organisation’s public-holiday calendar:
- Today is a public holiday holds when the place’s today is a holiday in that calendar.
- Today is a working day holds on every other day. Weekends are not holidays by themselves: combine with a time window’s weekdays to exclude them.
Where the calendar comes from:
- The holiday calendar of your organisation’s work schedule, if one is set in Business hours.
- Otherwise the organisation’s default holiday calendar, managed under Public Holidays and Holiday Calendars (Configuration). An administrator creates a calendar, imports a country’s holidays into it and marks one as default.
- If your organisation has no holiday calendar, no day is a holiday: “Today is a public holiday” is never true and “Today is a working day” always is. The run log says “no holiday calendar is on, so no day is a holiday”.
There is one calendar for the whole organisation; sites in different countries cannot have different holidays in this release. If your plan does not include the calendar pages, the condition behaves as in point 3.
Next run
A rule with a time, days-of-the-month or sun trigger shows Next when in the card: the earliest coming start, looking up to about 400 days ahead. It is an estimate of the start; its conditions may still stop that run.
Recipes
- Lights on at sunset +15, off at 23:00 on weekdays: two rules, or one with two triggers and a choice on the time. See Rules card cookbook.
- No heating on holidays: Only if Today is a working day.
- Summer setpoint: Only if Between two dates 06-01 to 09-30, then Change a setting.