Need for ELSE condition or “last update < X minutes” in When-Then rules

Rules: When-Then, Flows and Groovy
1

Currently, OpenRemote supports When–Then rules, but there is no Else condition. This limitation makes it difficult to handle recovery scenarios.

My use case:

  • I use When–Then rules to detect when a value is not updated (e.g. device goes offline).
  • When this happens, I raise an error and turn an asset off.
  • However, when the asset comes back online and updates again, there is no way to automatically resume normal operation (e.g. turn the asset back on), because there is no Else logic.

With the current rule system, this leads to one-way logic: failure can be detected, but recovery cannot be handled cleanly.

Two possible solutions that would address this:

  1. Support for an ELSE clause in When–Then rules.
  2. A condition such as “last update less than X minutes ago” (or access to lastUpdateTimestamp), so recovery logic can be expressed explicitly.

Either option would allow proper fault-and-recovery handling without needing workarounds or duplicated rules.

Is this functionality planned, or is there a recommended pattern to achieve this with the current rule engine?