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LibraSun

Before I unleash the dragon, is this the correct command format? (Answer: YES)

luup.call_action('urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:ZWaveNetwork1','SendData',{Node='24',Data='x70 4 8 1 3'},1)

I ran that exact command in Vera's APPS > DEVELOP APPS > Test Luup Code (Lua) window -- immediately after waking up the battery-powered remote by tapping one of its buttons -- and it worked perfectly!

LED does what it's supposed to do now. THANK YOU ALL!

LibraSun

Having spent years as a professional portrait photographer, I came by many tricks of the trade involving readily available materials. One such trick is known as an "Oil Spot Photometer", which can help you equalize the brightness of two or more light sources.

For simple setup instructions, visit:

Oct 2, 2020

Oil Spot Photometer

When an oil spot on a card is illuminated equally from both sides, it mysteriously disappears. This allows you to compare the brightness of the light sources on either side of the card.

The implications for Home Automation, of course, is knowing the preset dim levels needed to balance a room's lighting, without guessing. Just bear in mind that dimmer levels and bulb output are rarely linear, so you may have to take photometer readings at various brightness levels to create a lookup table (for use in MSR, etc.).

LibraSun

I'm enjoying this thread as it develops, but will stand by until someone wraps MSR into a Docker package that I can install/run on my Docker-enabled Synology NAS.

Like everyone else, "I'm at full candy corn" (so the Stewie Griffith saying goes) on this project and can't wait to give it a whirl!

LS

LibraSun

Sorry this happened. None of us deserved being kicked out. Especially after twelve dedicated years in my case! The forum was fun and helpful until the moment a certain someone began posting, sadly.

LibraSun

Such is my life. I proofread 1000-page reports for the Army Corps of Engineers and book authors all the time. Nothing gets past me.

LibraSun

For MSR users with SiteSensor still installed back on Vera, you might want to consider letting MSR take over those duties. Here's a quick run-down of how I imported one of my SiteSensor recipes into a Rule on MSR, using OpenWeather API* as an example.

STEP 1: Copy the Basics from Vera
(a) Go to your Vera > Devices, locate SiteSensor (the main instance, not one of its children devices) and click ► for details then click SETTINGS.
(b) Copy and paste (into Notepad or other text editor) the Request URL along with each of the defined expressions.

STEP 2: Create a Rule on MSR
(c) Jump into Rule Sets and click "Create Rule". Click its title to rename the rule 'OpenWeather (API)" and click 'Rename'.
(d) Decide on appropriate Triggers (in my case, it's an OR group that includes an [INTERVAL] set to "Every 3 hours" plus a few [ENTITY ATTRIBUTE] entries reacting to things like entering/leaving home, waking up, etc.).
(e) In Set Reacion, create an [HTTP REQUEST] > [GET] action.
(f) Paste your old "Request URL" into the "Request URL" box.

FYI GET calls to OpenWeather API* take the form:

http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?zip=<your_ZIP_code>&id=<your_Wx_ID>&appid=<app-id>&units=imperial

(g) Create four new blank Expressions (name them openWx, Tx, Hx and Rx).
(h) Click SAVE & EXIT

STEP 3: Process the Response
(i) Re-open rule "OpenWeather (API)" by clicking the 'Edit' icon.
(j) Within the [HTTP REQUEST] action, assign "Capture response to:" ► openWx
(k) Down in Expressions, click "[+]Add Expresssion" then enter the following:
Tx := round(openWx.main.temp,1)
// yields current outdoor temperature
Hx := round(openWx.main.humidity)
// yields current humidity conditions
Rx := openWx.rain ? ( openWx.rain['3h'] ? openWx.rain['3h'] : 0) : 0
// yields predicted rainfall, if present; otherwise 0
(l) Click SAVE & EXIT. Enjoy!

Naturally, your specific needs and workflow will differ from the one I've outlined here. For instance, you may wish to explore the contents of the JSON object in openWx for additional data of interest to you, and define variables to match.

My goal here has been to illustrate some key concepts needed for moving from SiteSensor over to MSR:

Some syntax is the same, such as dot notation for object.item.access;
Other syntax has changed, such as the use of ternary A ? B : C in place of IF (A, B, C);
Manually setting an [INTERVAL] in lieu of SiteSensor's timed schedule;

Pro tip: If your workflow demands that other Rules react to the output of the "OpenWeather (API)" rule, then be sure to create all of the aforementioned Expressions under "Global Expressions" instead, so they become accessible across all Rule Sets.

Once the transition is complete, you can either DISARM SiteSensor on Vera or remove it entirely with "Remove Device" (which will automatically remove all of its child devices).

*Additional reading:
OpenWeather API : https://openweathermap.org/api
FREE SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED TO USE THIS SERVICE

PRO TIP: See below for optimal way to incorporate OpenWeatherMap into your MSR workflow(s), by enabling the service directly in the reactor.yaml config file.

LibraSun

It's moments like this that I'm grateful for online Forums where the open exchange of ideas and experience works to everyone's advantage, without fear of reprisal from those "in charge".

LibraSun

It's been a pleasure watching the evolution of MSR. In fact, it's my primary reason for becoming active on this Forum.

LibraSun

For the record, I'm using "Hyper Backup" - a native Synology NAS app - to backup my entire /REACTOR folder structure to a folder in my Google Drive cloud account. Suggest other MSR users consider doing something similar, in the event of a local NAS drive malfunction.

LibraSun

@crille said in My newbie questions:

Thank you all.
I'll manage my use case either with scenes or MSR, just think Veras approach gives a good overview of what happens when I change House mode.

You're right in saying Vera got that particular facility right. Funny, I only discovered that "House Modes options" page very late in the game (i.e. around 2013?) and never bothered to use it beyond un-Arm'ing everything then forgetting about it. (I don't use any physical sensors, anyway.)

But I will say +1 to moving everything to MSR (or at least Reactor for the time being) and away from Scenes and naked Lua. Main reasons: Editability and Portability.

Of course, all your Lua code snippets can be run by Reactor, if that's your thing. I found that every Scene I ever created on Vera could be accomplished more succinctly by Reactor, with the added luxury of Expressions and its powerful runtime logic.

Literally the only Scene I have left on Vera is one which resets Reactor whenever it "trips" (throttles due to too much activity in a short time span). Period. Done. Buh-bye.

LibraSun

Holiday greetings from deep in the Louisiana swamp, where levee bonfires light up the night for Papa Noel and his sleigh full of home automation gadgets for all you good boys and girls.

LibraSun

@crille said in A couple of suggestions for MSR:

My 2 cents priority would be:

a tool to see where I'm using an entity, as trigger or condition

Concur +1 on #1

LibraSun

Kinda where I figured things stood, and by all means, stay the course! About to sell my unused Ezlo Plus now, btw.

LibraSun

And are we still at a ~0% probability that MSR will ever be made into a User App capable of being installed directly onto a Hubitat C-7? I will presume so.

Still, fun to dream... especially given the extreme challenge of doing satisfactory variable math on the HE platform (using webCoRE, for instance, much less natively, ugh).

LibraSun

Looks good, though I swear you might be missing a closing parenthesis at the end?

LibraSun

Those of us who once stood atop the old Forum leaderboard(s) will always be brothers in arms. I made the leap away from Vera to Hubitat last month and could not be happier.
Seeing less of anyone in a home automation forum can only be considered good news, no? :-}

LibraSun

There is (edit: WAS) a guy on the ezlo Forums who said he was looking for a Vera unit to replace his Plus. I'll drum up the link to his post: Nope, it vanished, along with the Message I sent him on that Forum. Wonder if he got booted for talking about equipment failure, lol.

LibraSun

@sweetgenius Okay, that's the part I was mentally unclear about... the variables appear as "Devices" then (I even watched @bravenel assign a virtual device type to one in a tutorial video), which we can include with Maker? That opens things up very nicely, indeed.

UPDATE: Oops, I think I oversimplified things with that conjecture. I went and created a (thought it was Global - wrong!) variable in Rule Machine but see no reference to it anywhere in the Hubitat UI. So will await further education... Then went and rewound the same tutorial video and realized Bruce was working in a thing called Settings > Hub Variables. I'll go kick its tires and see what's what. <10 seconds later> Yep, that's the ticket. After creating a variable connector (which can then be made any subtype of connector), it appears in Devices, ready to ship to Maker API. NEAT!

LibraSun

@gwp1 Do you happen to know whether MSR can "see" values of Global variables contained on the Hubitat hub? I haven't set any up yet (that's my next self-imposed exercise), but thinking ahead, it would be neat if MSR could react to changes in those.

LibraSun

I know you'd want to hear what the recommended solution (to the non-dimming on verbal command issue) was: Create a virtual dimmer, mirror its behavior (yes, Hubitat has an app for that, too!) back onto the physical switch, expose the new VS to Echo app, and voila! WORKS!! (Another member had blanket recommended introducing Z-Wave Poller -- yep, another app! -- for this single switch, which he suggests I keep in place.)

Of course, this doesn't directly address the original 'LoadLevelLast' aspect, but now thinking I'll just fiddle with their Basic Rules app to mimic that behavior. Amazing all the things you can accomplish on a Hubitat in 2 minutes that would take all day back in the Vera ecosystem.

UPDATE AND MEA CULPA: Oops, the whole "Device not responding" glitch was my fault. I had accidentally left the old copy of "Dining Room Light" in the list of Alexa's Smart Home > Devices. After removing it and re-running discovery (sans all the mirrored virtual switch rigging on Hubitat), the switch now behaves as expected thru voice commands, including Dim. How embarrassing!

MSR No longer Setting Reactions

Reactor (Multi-System/Multi-Hub) Announcements

MSR Telegram Messages Stopped Working

Lovelace initial setup

SSL Certificate for Multi System Reactor via LetsEncrypt

MSR ZEN32 weird behavior

HASS 2022.5 issue with ZwaveJS in MSR

Syncing of updates...

Global Expression – Reference Error

Cheapest platform on which to run MSR

Build 22118 - entity updates

[Solved] Is there a cap or max number of devices a Global Reaction should not exceed?

[Solved] Which version of npm should we be running for reactor-latest-22118-0f0772c.tar.gz

Is a global timestamp expression possible ?

Restart router when it's gone offline?

Latest ALTUI version brakes Reactor

MSR for Scene Controllers

Best strategy to get the difference between pulses in MSR

Status of MSR in Home Assistant

Notifications from Alerts

LibraSun

@LibraSun

Best posts made by LibraSun

Oil Spot Photometer

Latest posts made by LibraSun