I was hoping they'd fix automations for the newly activated temp sensors.
Can set time, but not days of week...
They also take the trigger temp falls below, or goes above condition very literally. Try setting an automation that activates at 3 a.m., that says if the temp falls below 65F, turn something on. Well, if it's already 64F at 3 a.m., it won't trigger. It should be "if temp is under 65" whether it falls below 65 or already is under 65 when the condition to test becomes active.
No change. Two ATVs and eight HomePod minis. Already over on new infrastructure - not convinced that all of these devices truly have the same "blueprint" from which to work and operate the home...
Hmmm....
That's actually how the automation triggers have always been. The temperature and humidity sensors in the HomePods aren't actually treated any differently than any of the bazillions of of temperature and humidity sensors that have been around for years.
For many people who haven't "gotten into" the smart home thing, this may me their first exposure to a temperature and humidity sensor and setting up automations with them, but they're not actually anything that hasn't already been around.
As for the triggers, you are correct, the temperature must CROSS the threshold to trigger the automation, not be AT (or on the other side of) the threshold. You'll notice the wording is "rises above" or "drops below" a certain temperature when you are creating the automation. The wording isn't "is above" or "is below"...
It's basically easy-to-read computer programming, so you have to treat the way it is written 100% literally.
The reason it works this way is that sensors don't continuously transmit their readings. That would destroy their batteries to be sending updates (even though most are the same as the last) all the time. Additionally, many automations, depending on what they do, would have to be running non-stop constantly checking. With a lot of automations, this would become resource heavy.
So automations use the "trigger" methodology, and so when a sensor sends an update (which it only does when it is reporting a CHANGE from it's last update) this triggers the automation to run and evaluate if the condition meets the automation's programming. Ie, if it has risen above or dropped below a certain point.
For temperature and humidity sensors as a whole category, an automation's TRIGGER can't contain something that is continuously TRUE. (ie, IS 64 degrees.)
I probably haven't explained that well, sorry. Basically, you have to follow the way the wording of the automations "program" is written to a tee... So an automation that, at 3am checks if the temperature rises above or drops below a certain temperature would have a very tiny chance of ever triggering. Because it would have to both BE 3am AND the temperature would change just the right way at that exact same moment. haha
