what exactly is standby ? how do you add a new mode if standby doesnt cut it ?

[getty8]

First off, the new modes of Arm away, Arm Home and Standby dont make much sense to me and are confusing at best. i just want Arm and Disarm, e.g. i dont need to be away to arm my cameras. And tying automations with Arm away is beyond me. Bottom line, since you say you didnt take away anything from the old app, can I add new modes like Arm and Disarm just for the cameras w/o automations ? please advise. Thanks.

[Edinburgh_lad1]

They don't make sense to many, I'm afraid, though one gets used to them eventually. The general advice is forget about the naming and consider them as three separate modes. You just need to automate specific actions for specific modes - automation is about the timing of specific actions - and you only have three modes to play with, so shouldn't be too complex. For example, you can automate to arm your cameras at 5pm and only arm one at 8am. If you have a specific request, let me know and I'll help in exchange for a kudo on here.

[StephenB]

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@getty8 wrote:

First off, the new modes of Arm away, Arm Home and Standby dont make much sense to me and are confusing at best. 

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If all you want is Arm and Disarm, then use "Arm Away" for Arm, and "Standby" for Disarm.  Then ignore "Arm Home".

The default behavior is to arm all cameras when the system is in "Arm Away", and to arm only the outdoor models when the system is in "Arm Home".  All cameras are disarmed when the system is in Standby.    This is a pretty common approach for home security systems (though the names vary). Ring uses "Away", "Home" and "Disarm".  Whatever you call it, one mode arms everything, another arms only the perimeter.

Another common scenario is that people want all cameras armed 24x7 when they are away on a trip, but want them on a schedule when they are not on a trip.  If that situation, you'd use Arm Away when you are on the trip, and set up the schedule to switch between Arm Home and Standby.

If these don't fit a particular user's needs, then they can just customize the modes to do what they want, and ignore the labels.  Though you don't need to change anything if all you want to do is arm everything together, and disarm everything together.

FWIW, I personally don't think the issue is the names, it is that the system doesn't have enough modes to give people all the control they need over their cameras.  

[getty8]

Thanks for the reply. that seems to work. Now i just have to make routines work. For some reason, schedules dont seem to turn cameras on in the evening. Setup is just not intuitive as the old app. Heavy sigh !

[StephenB]

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@getty8 wrote:

Thanks for the reply. that seems to work. Now i just have to make routines work. For some reason, schedules dont seem to turn cameras on in the evening. Setup is just not intuitive as the old app. Heavy sigh !

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FWIW, if you want to schedule things, then I recommend making sure Arm Away and Arm Home have the same camera rules, and then set up the automations to switch between Arm Home and Standby.

Likely you don't have the enable list set up properly for the automation.  If you are switching from Standby to Arm Home in the evening, then the automation has to be enabled in Arm Home, otherwise it will not run.  I always recommend enabling all the scheduling automations in "Arm Home, Standby".

If this doesn't help, please post screenshots of your automations.