Manage rules in the Xfinity Home App

What you'll need

• Xfinity Home or Xfinity Internet
• Access to the Xfinity Home App
  
  

What's a rule?

A rule is a customized command that helps you tailor your Xfinity system by:

• Notifying you when certain system events occur
• Automating system functions
• Allowing your devices to work together

How rules can help you

Rules are incredibly flexible and can help you manage your system, saving you time and effort. You can use them to tell your system what to do, at what times, on what days, and in response to what events. You can set whether the rule will be active all the time, only when the system is disarmed, or only when the system is armed in a certain Arm mode.

Examples of popular rules

Here are examples of rules you can add to get your system to automatically do things for you.

• Did someone forget to set the alarm? You're first out the door in the morning, but you want to be sure the system is armed after everyone else has gone. Add a rule to receive a text if the system remains disarmed after 8:30 a.m. on weekdays. If someone forgot, you'll know it and can arm the system from the Xfinity Home App.
• You want your lights off during the day, but you don't want to come home to a dark house. Add a rule to have your system turn off your lights at sunrise and turn them on at sunset.

The parts of a rule

Each rule is made up of settings. Available settings depend on what the rule is designed to do. Let's look at the settings in a rule to notify you if a door opens.

• A device — the device that your system will monitor for the rule. In the example rule, this is any door in your system. You can change this to be just one door or a combination of doors. When you're selecting a device to be used in a rule, keep the following in mind:
  • Some rules involve more than one device. The first is the device to be changed, and the second is the device that triggers the change.
    • For example, a light (device 1) can be turned on (changed) when a door sensor (device 2) is triggered.
  • Available devices are determined by the rule template.
    • For example, when configuring a rule to notify you when a door opens, you can select any door sensor in your system, but you can't select a window sensor.
• A trigger — the state that the device must be in to trigger the rule. In the example rule, any door must open. You can change the trigger in various ways, depending on the rule. For example, because this rule relates to a door, you could change this trigger to when a door closes.
• An action — what the system will do when the trigger occurs. In the example, the touchscreen plays an alarm sound. For other rules, you could change this to sending you an email, push notification, notification on your X1 box, or any combination of these.
  • The actions you can choose from change depending on the rule. For example, in a rule to control a light, you can choose to turn the light on or off.

Each rule also has optional conditions that control when the rule is active. Not all active conditions apply to every rule; see Active Conditions for more information.

• Days when the rule is active. In the example, the rule is active every day. You can change this to an individual day or combination of days.
• A time or time period when the rule is active. In the example rule, the rule is active all of the time. You can change this to a specific time period, such as between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. or sunrise and sunset.
• Arm mode when the rule is active. In the example, the rule is active only when the system is disarmed. You can change this to all modes, one mode, or any combination of modes.

If put into a sentence, the example rule described above would read, "If (device) any door is (trigger) opens, (action) play an alarm sound if (day) it's any day (time) at any time and (arm mode) if the system is armed or disarmed."

Note: Settings and the order in which they appear aren't the same for all rules. They change depending on what the rule is designed to do.

Active conditions

For certain rules, some active conditions might not appear at the bottom of the Customize screen.

Sometimes a condition is already included in the rule trigger, or the condition doesn't make sense when you consider what the rule does.

For example, you won't see the time condition for a rule to notify you if a door doesn't open during a certain time, because the time period is included as part of the rule trigger. If you change the trigger to one that doesn't include a time period, the time condition will reappear at the bottom of the screen.

Managing rules in the Xfinity Home App

The Xfinity Home App shows you all of your rules.

Rules that have the automation icon (a curved line above two dots) were built using an older rule template that does not support making changes to the rule. You can enable, disable, and delete these rules in the app. If you want to change them, you'll need to recreate them in the app first.

Viewing existing rules

1. Sign in to the Xfinity Home App.
2. On the Overview screen, tap the Automation icon (arrow over two dots).
   
   

The Automation screen lists your existing rules. The top of the screen shows a recommended rule or scene that you might want to add to your system. Swipe left or right to see other recommended rules.


Scroll down to see your scenes and rules.


Tap the three dots on the scene to view the scene details.

The icons to the right of the rule name tell you the conditions that limit when the rule is active: Arm mode, Days, and Times. If there are no icons, the rule is always active.