I voted but I feel like I should elaborate on what is missing here. I still think Wyze is overlooking critical things that would make itâs rules engine GREAT.
Yes, we definitely need more triggers and actions, but in order for Wyze to go back to being my primary rules/automation center, the foundation itself needs to be improved. I would suggest making rules act similarly to how they work in Home Assistant:
Automation UI:
Triggers can be searched:
You can add a number of conditions:
Primarily we need conditional operators like: If, then, and, or, time conditions, device state conditions, etc. Plus it needs to run actions sequentially, not in a BLAST of random execution order. And we need to be able to have time delays between actions (wait x amount of time before running the next action)
Then, the more actions integrated into it, the better.
Google Home recently added scripting as an option for itâs automations and and trained its AI to be able to help people write advanced automations just by describing the automation you want to make:
So now people donât even have to know how to set things up, they just tell the Google AI what they want their smart home to do, and it programs a script to do what they asked for. No technical knowledge really needed.
If Wyze isnât going to do all that with their own system, it would be nice if they would at least add triggers and actions into 3rd party systems like Google Home, Alexa or Home Assistant so that we can use more advanced options with Wyze stuff such as use-cases where we absolutely NEED conditional operators.
For example, right now it really sucks to try to automate lighting with the Wyze rules Engine. By which I mean have lights quickly turn on when I enter a room and turn off when I leave a room, all without me having to think about the lights. I eventually had to give up and have Home Assistant do it instead because Wyzeâs rules didnât really make it possible. Right now in the Wyze app, I canât tell Wyze to turn on lights as long as ANY motion sensor in the room detects a person, and only turn off the lights whenever EVERY motion sensor in that room is clear. I have to do a separate rule for each motion sensor, and if any of them clears, the lights turn off even though Iâm still in the room and one of the sensors still detect me. You donât make it possible to group motion sensors or use conditional operators to make this work. I did find a way to have a camera automate the lighting with person detection triggers, but the lights are fairly slow to turn on, especially in dim lighting. Also, I have to set the light timer for at least 10 minutes to make sure it doesnât accidentally go a short period without detecting a person if theyâre sitting still or laying down on the couch or something. It would be nice to combine a situation where lights can turn on if any motion sensor detects motion or any camera in that room detects a person, and only turn off the lights if every single motion sensor in that room is clear for 5 minutes and the camera hasnât detected a person for 5 minutes. Then things would turn on fast and not have false turn off actions. But because you donât offer conditional operators (and/or) we canât do this. So I had to move my lighting automations with my Wyze lights over to Home Assistant instead of keeping everything within Wyze because Home Assistant (with the 3rd party Wyze integration and other workarounds) makes it possible for me to do these things.
That should be one of the main focuses with the rules engine IMO. Yes, triggers and actions ARE important, but before you keep adding to your automation design debt, I suggest fixing the foundation. Setup conditional operators. Consider adding scripting. Maybe see if you can do something like Google where you tell it what kind of automation you want and it just creates the script for you. Then your system would be extremely powerful and extremely useful.
I know several other people agree with me on this. I have had countless conversations with @spamoni and @R.Good about this, so I know they have similar feelings about how to improve Wyzeâs automations/rules.
If you really want my feedback, this is it:
Make rules run sequentially. Add conditional operators (if, then, and, or). Add Time conditions between each action (wait x amount of time, then do the next action), and consider a scripting option like what Google just did. Google still allows the UI automation creation, but users can also use scripting for more power. In addition, Google AI can create any automation just by describing what you want it to do. If Wyze isnât going to do all that, then PLEASE add support for more devices, triggers, and actions through 3rd parties that DO support it, like Google Home.
Edit update 4/15/24: And another rule action that should be added is a custom notification as an action. Let us have a push notification with our own customized title and message as one of the action for any rule trigger. I have dozens of these for Wyze devices with Alexa and Home Assistant since Wyze doesnât support letting me do it natively. Itâs something a lot of people donât even realize that they would like and want until they try it, then they decide itâs awesome!
