My implementation that @jimtng kindly linked to works more like 1 than 2. How often it runs is a configurable property so you could go as little as one minute or as long as you want between runs. The lower the time between runs, the more fidelity the simulation will be. It’s kind of a dead giveaway if a bunch of lights all turn on or off all at once in different parts of the house.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with 2 though. That’s how Time Based State Machine [4.0.0.0;4.9.9.9] works. I think 1 results in a simpler implementation for this use case though.
That’s an interesting use case that I’ve not considered. I may add that to my rule template. My Threshold Alert template already has the code for a do not disturb period so I’d just need to move that to a library and call it from both.
In the mean time, my template runs based on the state of a Switch Item. You can create another rule to turn on the Switch at 4 and turn it off at 12 and get that use case covered.