Tips & Tricks #20: How to use the new Filter behavior. The Filter behavior is an AND operator. Before, your automations were limited to IF (one trigger or condition) THEN (one or many) behaviors or outputs.
Here is an example of how it works. The app screenshot below checks all exterior doors at 9PM, and if any are all closed, you will get a notification that the doors are closed. (The notification is determined by your "Door Check" strategy. In this case, I get a phone push notification, but it could be an email or text.)
I should probably point the Notification behavior, which is new, a couple updates back. Instead of or in addition to the end result of your automations, be it turning on a light or a siren, you can now send you or family members a notification in the form of phone push, email or SMS (and if you are set up with optional automated phone calls, those, too)
But back to Filter. There are two logical operators for this. Continue, as you can see, and Break. Continue allows the automation to go to the next line, but only if its condition is true. So, that first line needs the front door to be closed, or the entire automation stops.
Break is actually very similar, but the opposite. Break will stop the the automation if its condition is true. I could instead use the line "Break if Front Door is Open"
You can now add Delays between the step, for example, you want to check if something has been on/off/open or closed for X number of minutes, you'd have Delay line X minutes, then check whatever you want to check. For those of you that wanted extended Door Still Open alerts, now you have it.
You're welcome!
