Simplest way to control a set of lights based on time

TLDR verson:

I have 3 sets of lights (A, B, C).

Set A is on all the time.
Set B is on from 4pm to 6am.
Set C is on from 7pm to 6am.
If there is a power failure, or for whatever reason the PC controlling this network is off at 4pm, 7pm, or 6am, I still want it to set the appropriate state of the light sets when it comes back online (e.g. there is a power failure at 3:59pm, power comes back on at 5pm, I want light set B to be turned on at 5pm when the system comes back online).

What's the best way to do this?


Long version w/history and feedback on the online docs:


I just bought InControl Pro + zstick s2 to control the existing zwave devices in a friend's house. They keep losing the remotes and I'm the one who has to keep programming new remotes for time events, so I though this solution is ideal because the stick won't get lost since it's plugged into a PC and I can remote in and help them if they have issues.

My requirements were simple. I have 3 sets of lights (A, B, C).

Set A is on all the time.
Set B is on from 4pm to 6am.
Set C is on from 7pm to 6am.

I tried just winging it in incontrol and failed (conditions? rules? tried some of each, didn't work so I went to RTFM). Now I had programmed a remote to do this so I was familiar w/the basics of inclusion, exclusion, scenes, and timed events from that point of view (and I had no trouble excluding all their devices and including them in the zstick's network - 2nd time I've had to do this because they lose the remotes which are their only master controllers).

Suggestion: it would be good to note in the docs somewhere that you can go and exclude and include all your devices and they will be added to incontrol in FIFO order (when using the zstick series 2). I was going to each device, excluding it from old net, adding to new net coming back to PC and adding it to incontrol. A lot of running around.

I had hoped that incontrol pro would let me take over the existing network rather than have to exclude everything and include it in a new network but I couldn't figure out how to make that happen (the zstick's doc said it could do it if the host software supported that function, I assumed incontrol did but that's my mistake for assuming, I couldn't find in the docs any claims that it does this). If incontrol can do this, please document it somewhere.

So then I RTFM at this link http://www.incontrolzwave.com/page/InControl-Manual.aspx

I tried section 3.5 Advanced Rules. It is incomplete (#4 Random stops with a blank 2.)
It is also a bit confusing because it says "Rules allow for the creation of triggers that will perform certain actions when conditions are met. For example, if a light remains active for more than 10 minutes you can automatically dim it or turn if off." The use of the term "conditions" there is misleading, in the rest of the app conditions are used to LIMIT when triggers are allowed to do what they are supposed to do, they don't seem to be ever be used to do something when a condition is met - if I'm wrong I just didn't get the docs.

That's exactly what I was looking for though, I wanted set A on anytime the condition (time is between 4pm and 6am) was true.

I did see the thermostat example on that page and tried to adapt it to turning lights on and off, but it had me create a rule.

Later I found section 3.6 Scene Triggers and Conditions which explains what triggers and conditions are. From that I was able to get scenes working (after you fixed my problem w/the bad database).

Note that I didn't use eith