Limiting Condition

The limiting condition determines when a smart rule is allowed to control devices. While it limits, the smart rule keeps running, but its actions are not written to the devices. The condition itself turns nothing off: what the output does is decided by the device’s default values or by other smart rules.

Where to set it#

Every smart rule has a limiting condition. In its detail, below the Enabled toggle, there is the Limiting condition row with a toggle of its own, which turns the condition on and off. The row shows the selected type and, for time, also the period (for example Time (Day)), and tapping it opens the condition page:

Limiting condition

Attributes

1

Enabled

Select type

2

None

Formula

Time

Digital output

Multi-Value Switch

1. Enabled turns the condition on. While it is off, the type selection and the type’s settings are grayed out, and the condition never limits the smart rule.
2. Once you select a type, its settings appear below the list. A change takes effect only after you save the smart rule; saving restarts it, so a running Sequencer is interrupted.

The condition page does not show whether the smart rule is limited right now. You can see it in the device’s detail, in the Affected by section with the smart rules that control the device: a limited smart rule shows the status Limited with a pink icon.

Types#

Besides the None option, there are four types to choose from:

• Formula — Smart rule will only work when the equation is true; it also limits when the expression has no value or cannot be evaluated.
• Time — intervals in which the smart rule works and in which it is limited, within a day, a week, workdays and weekend, a month or a year; details in Limiting by time.
• Digital output — one device with the states Off and On, and for each state a toggle for whether the smart rule works in it. Both toggles are off at first — until you turn one on, the smart rule is limited all the time.
• Multi-Value Switch — a state whose toggle is off limits the smart rule. A state that you add to the device later does not limit until you open the condition page again and save the smart rule — only then does the app add it with its toggle off. This is also how you limit by presence mode, which is a Multi-Value Switch with the states Home, Away and others.

Limiting by time#

Since version 2026.1, instead of a single daily window From – To, you can set any number of intervals, not only within a day but also within a week, workdays and weekend, a month and a year, and a boundary can also follow sunrise or sunset.

A window is not entered as “from – to”. The condition is a list of boundaries, and the intervals between them alternate: the smart rule works ↔ the smart rule is limited. The state of the first interval (from the start of the period) is set by the First interval is limiting toggle, and the following intervals alternate. A smart rule that should work only from 13:00 to 13:05 therefore has the boundaries 00:00, 13:00 and 13:05 and this toggle on. With a week, workday/weekend, a month and a year, a boundary has a day as well as a time.

1. A new condition has a single interval from the start of the period (for a day, the row From: 00:00, To: next day), and its state is set by First interval is limiting — off by default, so the smart rule works all the time.
2. Add interval adds one boundary, not a window, and opens its settings right away. The boundary starts at the start of the period (for a day, 00:00); when you go back, the app sorts it in by time and splits the interval it falls into in two.
3. The arrow next to a row opens the end boundary of that row. Remove deletes it, and the row merges with the next one. On the last row, the arrow adds a boundary, and Remove deletes nothing there.
4. You leave the boundary settings with the back arrow, and that saves the change — the boundary page has no Cancel button.

What to watch out for#

• The app silently drops a boundary at the start of the period. A new boundary is set to the start of the period by default (for a day, 00:00) — and that one is already in the list. If you do not change it, nothing is added when you go back, and no message appears. The same goes for any boundary that is already in the list.
• Switching between Time and From sunrise or From sunset resets the value. When you switch a boundary to the sun and back to Time, it has 00:00 and may be dropped when you go back — even a boundary that was there before.
• The state belongs to the position in the order, not to the boundary. When you move a boundary past another one, the window moves. When you give it the time of another boundary, one of them disappears and all intervals after it switch to the opposite state.
• Workday/Weekend: a weekend day does not start with a boundary. The start of the period is workday, 00:00. Workday boundaries apply on every workday (Monday to Friday), weekend boundaries on both Saturday and Sunday, and the weekend starts with the state Friday ended with (Sunday with the state Saturday ended with).
• Changing the time period empties the list of boundaries. Until you leave the page, going back to the original period brings it back.
• The smallest step is one minute. You pick the offset from sunrise or sunset from fixed values from −6 to +6 hours: up to one hour in 15-minute steps, up to three hours in 30-minute steps, and beyond that in 1-hour steps.
• A boundary is the start of an interval — with a window until 22:00, the smart rule is limited from 22:00:00.

What happens to the smart rule while the condition limits it#

• The smart rule does not stop. It keeps evaluating inputs and timers, a Sequencer goes through its steps and can also be started. Only writing actions to devices and sending notifications is blocked.
• A One-time action that falls into the limited time is lost — it is not applied even after the limitation ends.
• A Hold action is applied when the limitation ends, even without a new change of input — if the smart rule still holds it at that moment.
• From the start of the limitation, the output is taken over by a smart rule with a lower priority, otherwise by the device’s default value. With the default value Do not change, the output stays as it was.
• After the limitation ends, the Sequencer applies again the hold action of the step it is currently in — not the actions of earlier steps. A Sequencer that has finished in the meantime no longer holds anything. The Indefinitely repetitive mode keeps looping during the limitation too.
• Exceptions: Light Controller and PID controller reset when limited and release their outputs; after the limitation ends, they start from scratch.

Example: an irrigation Sequencer in Controlled by triggers mode is started at 13:00 by a trigger, and the limiting condition lets it work only from 13:00 to 13:05 — the condition does not start it by itself. Step 1 turns the valve on with a hold action, and the Last step turns it off. When step 1 takes 5 minutes or longer, the turn-off comes only during the limitation and is lost, because the actions of the last step are always one-time. A valve with the default value Do not change then stays on until a person or another smart rule turns it off; with the default value Off, it turns off right at 13:05. So shorten the Sequencer so that it ends before the end of the window, or give the valve the default value Off.