Christmas Lighting

[Steve Horn]

I'm surprised someone hasn't already posted something of this sort. Anyone out there using HB to control, randomly, one or more devices (Insteon/X10...) to turn on and off Christmas lights? I've got two Insteon devices that control tree lights (white/colored) That I want to randomly be turned on and off. Currently they are controlled by a task that is triggered by clock time. But it would be cooler to randomize the selection so that, based on the result of the randomize either device or both would be on, the update interval being about 10-15 minutes. I'm sure this is pretty basic stuff to others but I don't know enough about VB Script to put that into code. And a search of 'Christmas' and 'Random' turned up nothing. Ideas, Suggestions?

BTW, I did find other threads that 1) wished everyone a Merry Christmas and 2) thanked Scott for all the HB development work. I want to echo both of those sentiments for 2007. Everyone in the HB family have a great Christmas Holiday and stay safe! And Scott, I don't know what I'd do without HB! I found out how reliant I am on HB today when my LAN's router went belly up and, for awhile, nothing on the LAN worked. I cannot fathom going back to controlling things (video, audio, lighting...) manually.

Sorry for the long thread.

[jonkjon]

Yes...I am using HB to turn on/off my tree lights and window candles at dusk/dawn. This is especially helpful for two of my window candle lights that are in dormers in my attic. I am using x10 lamp modules though and they haven't been the most reliable since i switched my switches (~20 of them) over to insteon. I need to replace them with the insteon modules when i can spare the extra cash.
Merry Christmas to everyone..........
I got so wrapped up in the Christmas stuff, i forgot to mention that i like your suggestion about randomizing the time. I think that other than just for Christmas, it would be really useful as a security feature. I do know that there is a randomize command you can use with vbscript. It probably wouldn't be too hard to come up with a way to add or subtract say up to 30 minutes on either side of a set time. I need to add this to my "HB to do" list. Great suggestion.....