How to turn on and turn off "I'm Away" shortcut

I’m confused about setting up and using the “I’m Away” shortcut. I can see how to set it up. For example, the button will turn on cameras and turn off plugs (which are connected to lights). So the button is created. How do I turn on “I’m Away” so the plugs stay off, then turn it off so my system runs normally with automations controlling the plugs (e.g., turn on at sunset and off at 10 pm). If I hit the “I’m Away” button, I simply get a “triggered” message. What does that mean? How do I know if the system is in “I’m Away” mode or “normal operation” mode? And if it is in “I’m Away” mode, how do I turn it off and go back to “normal operation” with all automations working as set up?

The shortcut is just a script. It runs what you tell it to run. You could call the “I’m Away” shortcut “Peanut Butter and Jelly”… as it’s just a label. not a “mode”.

You are more describing the Home Monitoring solution where the system is Armed or Disarmed based on a profile. That is not what is happening with the shortcuts. They simply run the list of items in the shortcut when you press the button.

That’s why it says “triggered”. It just means it ran the list of things. You can go look in your Automation History for what it did and if any of those actions failed. You can find that by clicking the little button in the upper-right on the top of the Automations List (looks like a tiny house with a clock on it).

Hmnn. So are you saying the instruction is not permanent? It’s just a momentary thing? Let me simplify and clarify.
Let’s say I have one plug (connected to a light) and there is a rule (automation) that turns on the plug (light) at sunset and turns it off at 10 pm. It works great, exactly as instructed. I then set an “I’m Away” shortcut that has an instruction “turn off the plug.” Are you saying that “triggering” that shortcut is exactly the same as simply turning the plug to the off position? And when sunset arrives, the plug will turn on according to the rule? That is, the rule overrides the “I’m Away” shortcut?
If so, I’m not sure what the point is for the “I’m Away” shortcut other than it may be a way to instruct all plugs to turn off that fall within that shortcut. But if you are truly away and want the instruction to apply the entire time you are away, how do you accomplish that?

I guess what I’m looking for is the following: I have four rules that turn on four lights at sunset (or thereabouts). I’d like a shortcut that says: “Suspend those rules until further notice.” Then, I need a shortcut that turns those rules back on.

The way to think about it is you can have Automations in 3 ways:

  • Shortcut - or MANUAL BUTTON. You press a button and a list of things happens AT THAT MOMENT. When Button Pressed → DO XYZ, To answer your question, YES, it is exactly like just turning the plug off by hand… In my personal shortcut, I have a list of 20 items in my “I’m AWAY” Shortcut that occur.

  • Schedule - This is essentially scheduling a list of things to occur based on a time of day/day of week. 10 PM comes around → TURN OFF PLUG.

  • Device & ServiceTrigger - This is where you setup the magic… I use motion detectors in my house so that if motion is detected, turn on lights. But for every action, you need a counter action… so I also have a rule that say if NO motion is detected for 10 minutes, then turn the lights off.

So, to clarify… Any of these things above, a shortcut, a scheduled automation, or a Trigger (motion detected, turn on light) are all AT THE MOMENT things. Meaning, you can setup rules that can start contradicting each other because they all just do what their told by the TRIGGER (which is manual, scheduled, or Automated).

You are never setting something up to “stick”. You are simply making things happen at that instance when the automations run BASED ON THE TRIGGER.

In your case, if you want the light to come back on because you might turn it off through some other means, you can setup a scheduled rule to run multiple times over the course of the night. That will make the rule run again and turn on the plug again if it is off.

There are some other things to do in terms of Smart Home Magic but that requires some of the other Wyze toys. I love my Smart Home. I don’t unlock doors, I don’t touch light switches, I don’t have to mess with toggling camera notifications or setting up how it notifies me.

You can also setup the Geo-Fencing Rule (I left this out on purpose for a 4th option above)… that is a rule that senses where your phone is at and if you leave the perimeter, it does whatever you want. When you enter the perimeter, it does something else.

In my case, when I leave, the Thermostat turns off… all the lights turn off, the front door locks. When it senses I come home, and it’s dark, it will turn on the porch light, unlock the front door, and turn on the t-stat.

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A shorthand thing to do is make a Shortcut called “I’m Away - Daytime” that turns off the lights.

Then another one that says “I’m Away - Night” that excludes the lights when you know your home lights are on.

Thanks. That clarifies things.
It seems that what I want is something that “disables” the rules that turn on lights at sunset if I don’t want those rules to run. It would be easier than disabling each rule individually.

@williasp,

@Earl.Automation is right. These are one time events.

I read through this thread and said “I’ve run into this problem”.

Normally, if a wyze automation will not do what I want, I bring in the big gun " Alexa"

I just tested her and asked her to:

Turn on a light until further notice. She said OK. But then she quickly turned off the light when asked.

Not pleased with that I decided to see what my Kasa’s would do. Kasa has a special setting called “on duration”. I was hoping that this would work. It didn’t. I told Alexa to turn off the light. She did.

As @Earl.Automation suggested you can make more complicated rule that will do what you want.

I believe what you are looking for is :

Turn on x and ignore all other commands until y time or I click a special button.

Hmmm food for thought.

@williasp - Here’s how you do it. Go to Automations → Create Device & Service Trigger → IF “Plug” has been off for 2 min —> THEN → Turn on Plug → Schedule = 10 pm to 6 am. Like this:

Small Edit w/soapbox: The Automation that Wyze offers is the #1 reason I argue their value is higher than other companies. I truly have a smart home. And I don’t even go to the next level of automation with private automation. Their stock Automation is pretty good. Especially when using all the devices like motion or door sensors, you can usually cover a lot of bases in terms of how you want things to be in terms of on or off. It’s usually one or the other.

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Great. Thanks.