This FAQ comprises of a response provided to a customer enquiry.
First if you are using the PIXIE app and not the PIXIE Plus App, each time you open the PIXIE app the current time from your PIXIE App is sent to all of your PIXIE devices.
Therefore, if you had a schedule that was operating your lights at 5pm during winter, this will now operate at 5pm, – even if daylight savings affected. That is, as your phone automatically updates its time for daylight savings, so, the PIXIE system has its time updated too once the app is opened and connected.
Of course, using this 5pm example, if you had your outside lights turn on at 5pm during winter, clearly in summer that will be too early and you may need to adjust your schedule using the PIXIE app to a more appropriate time.
—
If you are using the PIXIE Plus App, the times for all schedules and devices is maintained via the PIXIE Gateway.
We recommend that it is wise to have a range of schedules for Summer and a range of Schedules for winter.
In this way via the PIXIE Plus app, in the scheduling section, it is possible to enable and disable these different schedules at different times of the year. This also means you don’t have to keep adjusting schedules and can simply turn a set of schedules off and turn another set of schedules on from within the App for the appropriate time of year.
—
There is a final approach you may like to take – which is called sunrise and sunset – and you would need the PIXIE Plus app and a voice assistant – SIRI, Amazon Alexa or Google Home account to make this operate as expected.
Each of these different home assistants have a different method and way to make this happen, but the result is the same. In this scenario the voice assistant control the time schedule instead of the PIXIE solution, and PIXIE simply receives a message from the voice assistants to take an action 0 in this case turn on the front lights – at an appropriate time.
If using this setup, there is no need to have the schedule setup in PIXIE Plus, instead you set this up in the preferred voice assistant.
Sunrise and sunset is different each day, everywhere, based on your actual location.
Often homeowners may want their outside lights to turn on 10 minutes before sunset or turn off 10 minutes before sunrise – as just 2 example. As the sunrise and sunset is different everyday at each location, so these “10 minutes before” and “10 minutes after” are different each day too.
Simple create a routine/macro in the preferred voice assistant and direct the command to recall a scene, or a device or a group in PIXIE at the appropriate time.
