Event Triggers

A trigger is used to tell the event to perform some action. You can set the trigger to manual, which forces the event to be triggered by either the execute event menu, by a voice command, or by another event. Manual events are useful as macros. They define a set of actions that may be triggered by some other event. Triggers are evaluated automatically, but you can control when a trigger is allowed to run an event by applying conditions to the event as well. See the conditions section for more information on adding conditions to an event. Note: Manually executed events will bypass both trigger and condition checking and will run immediately - the event does not have to be configured to be a manually triggered event to be run manually.

Select the type of trigger you want from the drop down combo box labeled Type. The current trigger settings are displayed by default.

The following options are available on the Event Properties dialog and pertain to all triggers.

Enter the name you wish to call this event. Although you can name multiple events with the same name, this can cause confusion. Events can be triggered by name. If you would like to send an E-mail message that forced an event to trigger, you would use its name. If you have multiple events with the same name, HomeSeer will only trigger the first one. Try to keep all event names unique.

This drop down list selects the event type. Depending on the event type selected, different options will appear in the dialog

Select a group name from the drop down list, or type in a new group name. Groups are useful for organizing events so that they may be viewed easier in the event list.

Enter a command string that you would speak to trigger the event. Check the box labeled Voice Command to enable the command. Note that you must have voice recognition installed to use voice commands. You can enable voice recognition on the Voice Recognition tab in the options. See the Voice Recognition section for more information on formatting voice commands.

The Enable drop down list allows you to select the input the device that will accept the voice command. The options are:

If checked, the user must confirm the voice command before the events actions are executed.

A trigger may be disabled without deleting it. Check the box labeled Disable this Trigger and the event will not trigger. You can also disable a trigger by right clicking it in the event view and selecting Disable/Enable Event. This will toggle its enabled status. Although an event will not trigger, it may still be run manually.

If you would like to disable all of your events, select Disable All Events from the tools menu.

If you would like the event to only run once, check the box Delete Event after Trigger. This will permanently remove the event only after it has been triggered. This is useful for creating one-time events like recording a channel on a VCR.

Some trigger types allow you to apply conditions to them. If the trigger allows this feature, this option will be enabled. The recurring trigger allows this for example. You can setup a recurring event to run every hour, and apply some conditions to only allow it to trigger during the day. Select the trigger type you want, then click the conditions button to setup conditions for it. More information on conditions can be found here.

When guests log into your HomeSeer web site they can view the status of your devices and see your events. They cannot make modifications to your device configurations, events, or force a trigger of an event or control a device. There may be situations where you might want to allow a guest to trigger some action for a subset of your devices. If you enable this checkbox, guests will be able to trigger this event. This can be used for moving a web cam for example, or allowing the control of a particular lamp to get someone’s attention.

Note that the Web Page Guests can Trigger option affects the triggering of events only. If you would like to allow a guest to control a particular device, assign the device to an event and give the guest access to that event.

When selected, the event will not write any information to the event log when it triggers. This is useful for events that are triggered by a motion sensor and tend to clutter the log with motion-sensed messages.

Some triggers can have their trigger time offset using Security Mode. See Security Mode for more information.

This option is available on all triggers. It will keep the event from triggering again within the number of seconds that you specify. This is useful for events controlled by motion detectors, and can reduce double triggers from keypads.

If power fail recovery is enabled, this event will be run when HomeSeer detects that it is recovering from a power failure. If the event is not controlling a critical device, maybe it simply speaks the time or performs some other non-critical function, then this checkbox should be left unchecked. If the event controls a critical device, maybe it turns on the outside lights at sunset, then this checkbox should be checked. If checked, HomeSeer can then be sure that the status of the controlled devices is correct. See the power fail recovery chapter for more information.