# Schedules

Naturally, schedules are a big part of home automation. A schedule is made up of events and responders. An event is something that is scheduled to happen at a certain time each day. A responder is triggered, not by time, but by other actions. For example, a responder might be triggered by a motion sensor reporting motion and it will respond by taking actions like turning on a light in the hallway.

Schedules can be carried out by a controller or by the Mac. Controller models vary in what, if anything, they can store. The advantage of a schedule stored in a controller is that you can turn off the Mac and let the controller take care of things. The advantage of the Mac schedule is that it can perform Mac-only actions, such as email, instant messaging, logging and scripts.

To open the Schedules window, select Schedules from Thinking Home’s Window menu.

## To add a new event:

1. Press the Add Event button
   or select New Event from Thinking Home’s File menu.
2. In the newly opened Event Info window, change the days, time and other options as needed. Note that some options may not be available if the controller does not offer them.
3. Customize the actions as desired. Again, some actions may unavailable, depending on the controller.
4. To add more actions to the event, press the + button. Remove unwanted actions with the — button.

## To add a new responder:

1. Press the Add Responder button
   or select New Responder from Thinking Home’s File menu.
2. In the newly opened Responder Info window, change the trigger action as needed. Note that some options may not be available if the controller does not offer them.
3. Customize the actions as desired. Again, some actions may unavailable, depending on the controller.
4. To add more actions to the responder, press the + button. Remove unwanted actions with the — button.