Sunrise Sunset Times and Daylight saving

[admin]

Comfigurator 3  has Sunrise and Sunset times. Go to Schedule > Sunrise/sunset,  see screenshot below.  Note that Comfort II firmware 5.121 and above is  needed for this feature





In Sunrise/ Sunset Properties on the right pane, click set times by latitude/longitude



Select the City from the drop-down list. If the city is not listed, enter the latitude and longitude/ Click  the \"SET TIMES\" button on the bottom of the screen

The table on the left shows the sunrise and sunset times for each week of the year
Weeks are calculated from 1st January as Day 1, hence weeks can start on any day of week not just Monday

The sunrise and sunset times shown are before changes  for daylight saving. During the Daylight saving period, Comfort\'s time is set forward by 1 hour. That means that when daylight saving is on, the sunrise and sunset times are 1 hour earlier than the times shown.

These sunrise and sunset times are obtained from freely available sources. This may not agree with other sources on the Internet. Please check the times for the City selected. The database for all the cities listed is found in the file cities.csv in the config folder, which can be edited.

The purpose of the sunrise and sunset times is to
1 - Activate Sunrise and Sunset times at the correct times in the sunrise/sunset table. Go to Events > Misc Events to see the sunrise and sunset responses.

2 - Set the Night time flag after sunset and before sunrise. This can be used in the Action If Night Time.. to allow things to be done at night. The Night Time Flag is NOT one of the 64 User Flags; it is a dedicated flag that is controlled by Comfort and cannot be changed by user programming.
eg
If NightTime <> 0 Then
    Do something
Else
    Do something else
End If

The above response means if Night time is True (<>0) then do an action or response  else do another action or response

Daylignt Saving Time
Comfort automatically changes the time forward or backwards at the dates given in the Daylight saving section (Start Date and End Date). This takes place at 3 AM on the day of week, normally Sunday shown on the tables. Sunrise and sunset times are changed accordingly so that sunrise and sunset occurs at the correct times regardless of what date it is

You can test the sunrise and sunset times by setting the time to 1 minute before sunrise or sunset and waiting for the next minute.

When you save the file and open it again later, the City is not shown, but the  sunrise and sunset times are maintained. You can also Read (Comfort to PC) the sunrise/sunset times in Comfort

UCM/ETH03 Internet Time Synchronisation
The UCM/ETH03 is able to synchronise the time using an Internet Time Server and update Comfort Time on a regular basis so the time will always be correct.
See http://www.comfortforums.com/forum113/3695.html

[slychiu]

How to Offset Times for Sunrise and Sunset Response

The sunrise and sunset offset action causes the sunrise or sunset times to be offset by -128 to + 127 minutes from the programmed value. This allows you to, for example, turn on lights 30 minutes before sunset and/or 10 minutes after sunrise







In the above example the sunrise time has been offset by + 30 minutes, which means the Sunrise Response will be activated at Sunrise + 30 minutes

Offset Sunset time is done the same way

You create a Response with the action to offset the sunrise and/or sunset times. Then you need to activate the Response using an event for example in Time programs. This action remains in place until changed again by another sunrise/sunset offset action or until Comfort is reset


Note that this does not change the Night Time Flag which is automatically set between sunrise and sunset. It only changes the activation time of Sunrise or Sunset Responses

[slychiu]

How to set the Sunrise/Sunset Times when the Country and city is not found in the list

First find the Lattitude and Longitude of the city you wish to use

This can be found easily on the internet
eg for Dubai search for Dubai Coordinates
The results are 25.2048 deg North, 55.2708 East
Enter the results in the Latitude/Longitude list in degrees and minutes

25.2048 = 25 Degrees 12 Minutes
55.2708 = 55 degrees 16 Minutes

1 degree = 60 minutes

Enter Timezone in terms of +/- hours from GMT
For Dubai this is +4

Daylight Saving Used: Check the box if used.

Press OK




This will generate the sunrise/sunrise tables for each week




This does not add the city into the list
If anyone would like to have their city added to the default list, let us know

[slychiu]

On a related subject;
Setting your timezone
Transfer > Set Comfort Date and Time sets  the PC date and time to Comfort.You should also set your TimeZone in Modules and settings as shown below. This is because the cclx file may have been sent from elsewhere with a different time zone