The setup wizard is a guided, step-by-step way for a novice user to do basic setup and configuration of a MiOS system.  Everything that you can do in the setup wizard you can also do in the dashboard, the wizard just makes it very easy to do this without knowing how MiOS works.

The setup wizard works has 3 parts:

1.  Devices

This is where you add the devices you want to control.  You can add ZWave, INSTEON, and X10 devices, as well as network cameras.  There are a lot of other types of devices you can also control by adding applications from the MiOS market.  You cannot access the MiOS market from the setup wizard, however, you have to use the Dashboard.

While adding devices and scenes in the wizard you can optionally create rooms to help you organize them.  In big homes with lots of rooms, you can further organize the rooms into sections.   Click here to learn about rooms and sections.

2.  Scenes

Scenes are how you automate your home.  A scene is a group of commands or settings for one or more devices.  For example, you can create a "Going to work" scene that turns off all the lights, locks the front door, and lowers the thermostat.  Then, you can do all those things in 1 step by activating the "Going to work" scene from the dashboard or a MiOS controller.

You can also have scenes activate automatically at certain times using Timers, such as to run on Wednesday's and Thursday's at 8:00am, or on the 15th of every month at 1 hour past sunset, or activate every 30 minutes.  Scenes can also run automatically in response to Events from other devices.  For example, you can have a scene that turns on the lights by the front door whenever a motion sensor is tripped.

To create a scene in the Setup wizard you will be first asked to select the devices you want to control as part of the scene, and then to specify what to do with each of those devices when the scene is activated.  Since scenes often involve lighting and it can be hard to know exactly what lighting levels achieve your desired effect, it might be easier to walk around the home and adjust the lights by hand to the right levels for your scene first.  In the scene wizard, after you choose the devices to activate in a scene, you will have the option of using the current settings for a device in the scene.

Note that in the scene creator in the setup wizard you can only do basic things, like adjust lights.  If you want to control complex devices, like UPnP media players, or have things happen after delays, like "turn a light on for 30 seconds and then turn it off", or do things in a certain order, then you will need to click the 'setup' button for that scene on the dashboard to do more advanced scene setup.  You can also simply create the scene from the dashboard in the first place if you know you will want to do advanced things in the scene.

In the setup wizard, after you create a scene, you can attach timers and events to the scene to make it run automatically.  However you need to use the dashboard's scene editor if you want to attach conditions, like "activate this scene at sunset, but only if the temperature is above freezing".

You can also bind the scene to a button on an in-wall scene controller or a handheld remote control by clicking the 'Setup' button that device.  __learn more__

3.  Notifications

The wizard also let's pick a device, like a door lock, and say that you want to be notified when something happens with that device, for example, when the door is unlocked.

Again, the setup wizard only gives you the ability to add basic notifications.  The MiOS dashboard does let you do many sophisticated things which are not exposed in the setup wizard.  The goal of the setup wizard is to to ensure that even a total novice can get a simple home automation system going in a matter of minutes by presenting the most basic home automation features in a simple, guided, step-by-step wizard.  Once that basic solution is up and running, it's easy to explore the apps in the MiOS market and the more advanced aspects of home automation.