Rule to trigger action xx minutes before $var

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Hi,

I am using the method described in this post to pass my next alarm with tasker to pimatic as new variable $alarm.

Now I would like to trigger some actions before the alarm starts, e.g. move shutter up and turn on heating in the kitchen xx minutes before $alarm. Is there any way to do this?

Sorry for my asking but I am new to pimatic (and even to tasker) and I did not find how to do this.

Thank you in advance
-triagony

Anybody? No hints for me?

Kind regards
-triagony

I’m also interested in this!

As far as I know you can’t trigger a rule that is x time before or after a variable time.

@koffienl That`s a pity. It would be great. Why does it work with the sunrise-plugin? At least the plugin site says so (“its time period before|after suntime”)…

Do you know of any other possibility to get this work?

Sorry don’t know.
But since you are setting the alarm yourself, why not set the correct time instead of using a rule to do it xx minutes earlier?

@koffienl I set the alarm in my android phone then tasker will pass this time to pimatic. The time of alarm changes from day to day (so does the value passed to pimatic). Sure it would be possible to tell pimatic the new alarm time everytime I change it in my phone. But this would - in my opinion - reduce pimatic to absurdity - at least for this case.

Not sure if I follow … so you use tasker to set a vriable in pimatic. What is the variable used for in pimatic? Does it actually do something or do you only use it to enable some devices xx minutes before the specific time ?

I use it to display my next alarm in Pimatic like this: and I want to create rules on the basis of this variable.

But I assume I have to create another variable to pass to pimatic (%alarm - x minutes or so) and have to create rules on basis of this.

@triagony @koffienl I actually have the same thing. I set my wake up alarm based on a variable in Pimatic. What I’d like for example is turn up the my thermostat one hour before I wake up.

Could you explain more about the times you are using? Do you work in shifts so you need an alarm for 6, 12 and 16.00?

If so, you can use three buttons that echo the times to a file(when button6 is pressed then execute “echo > 6.00 path/to/file” and that file output can be used as a variable. When shellsensor device = “6.00” then set variable.

@Gleno0h No I am not working in shifts, but I get up on different times in the morning, e.g. 6.30, 6.45, 7.30… It varies. I usually use my phone as alarm. So I had the idea to use tasker and autoalarm to read my next alarm on the phone and pass this time to pimatic. I do so with the method I have linked to in the first post.

Now I want to use this time (which changes every time I change my alarm on the phone) and tell pimatic to execute some actions some time before the alarm goes off, e.g. to turn on the heating in the kitchen (because it usually takes some time until the kitchen gets warm after the heating is turned on).

But after what I have read so far this seems not to be possible.

Extend your tasker script to fill several variables with earlier times (based on the input time) for the several devices you want to trigger on certain times

Okay, I have solved this by creating 3 variables in pimatic/tasker $alarm, $alarm_status and $before_alarm. $alarm is my actual alarm time set on my phone. $before_alarm is calculated within tasker (alarm - x seconds). I pass everything to pimatic so I can create rules based on $alarm and $before_alarm (in combination with $alarm_status “on/off”. More a work around but it seems to run good (at least today morning it worked).

i have a value-variable $alarm_time = 06:00 wich i could edit with an VariableTimeInputDevice.

for getting a between-time-range i have a Second variable as expression $alarm_time_plus_35 = timeFormat(timeDecimal($alarm_time) + 35/60).

this would output 06:35:00 and change dynamic by editing $alarm_time

so the rule would be like:

if it is after $alarm_time and before $alarm_time_plus_35 and $bewegung_40_minuten_bad = “Ja” then <dosomething>

@xCite86 that would reduce the use of tasker, nice example.

Any new development on this?
I have some rules that are triggered on xx minutes before sunset starts. Although sunset timing is good enoug per season, during the year I have to change that timing a bit. Would be really nice to use a variable for this.