I wanna answer your question so badly, but fear my input at this juncture would be invalid since I no longer have a use-case for MSR. Oh, it's still running 24/7 in a Docker container over on my Synology NAS... but once I finalized the transition from Vera over to Hubitat (THANK YOU 1000x @toggledbits !), and ported all my my old logic into my new C7 hub, my "fiddling" days abruptly ended.

Do I still have Rulesets in place (but disabled) on MSR Reactor (Multi-hub) latest-21307-1746e27? Yep. Are the Rules they contain worth mentioning, since 49% involved Vera and 49% were extremely/overly experimental in nature, with 2% marked for "Testing"? Nope.

And did I ever try to Register another username on the old long-forgotten ezlo Forum after being excommunicated 4x? AW HELL NAW!

But I will mention that MSR comes to mind periodically, such as earlier today, when I realized Hubitat lacks a native way to generate and send email messages to its users. And at other times when I delve into heavyweight plug-ins (the HE community calls them User Apps) like WebCore, I think to myself, "Hot damn, this would be waaaay easier to accomplish over in MSR."

Mostly, I'm posting this reply just to SAY HI TO THE GANG, whom I miss, and to let you guys know that all of the time (Vera tweaking) and headaches (ezlo PTSD) I've spared myself over the past year was invested in buying and riding a new electric bike (the Priority Current with Enviolo CVT), so now I know what the outdoors looks like.

PEACE and lemme know if my answer here raised more questions.

• Libra

Any time Patrick sets out to do something, count me in! I still have my bucket of unused Vera/Ezlozerz controllers (some retired, some never used) sitting in a distant corner, while I thrive on Hubitat. Is every HA company run by a Melih-type? I'm starting to think so. All about "control" if you catch my drift.

Always grateful to have the company of titans like you guys, and glad we all escaped our old dungeon intact. Surprised as anyone that V/E is still in business; their products must have reached whatever sufficiently "okay" status needed to serve the CEO's mansion.

I won't be a party pooper by mentioning my current favorite (by far) Dashboard app, nor is this the place for me to publish/share my spreadsheet of HA Dashboards currently competing in that space. For mulit-hub use, none surpasses MSR!!!

Let me know if you'd be interested in me posting that database up somewhere on the SmartHome forum, and I'll happily do so.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

@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:
https://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/oil-spot-photometer

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.).

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

Am reading this with interest, but also with a tear in the corner of my eye, because you've consistently been such an integral and immensely helpful member of the Vera community. It's always bittersweet when another Vera must die a natural death, but this also means other more viable platforms are gaining new wings.
Thanks for posting!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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".

This is like hearing the very last Blockbuster location is closing... I never imagined any X10 devices would have made it into the 2020s, much less a houseful of them! A hearty hello from a fellow X10 traveler who refuses to empty his two Tupperware tubs of old controllers, switches, receptacles, bridges, lamp/appliance modules, dimmers, contacts, remotes, extenders, sirens, alarms and myriad other 1980/1990's-era componentry.

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

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.

@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.

My home setup is minimal and because WAF only depends on Alexa listening and Hubitat executing, a dashboard really doesn't factor into my daily driving.

But for now, having scoured the forums for details on every extant DB app out there, and compiled a comprehensive tally of their features, my current "favorite" (read: for beta testing purposes) is definitely hubiVue from the Australian developer Grant Slender.

He is taking it in all the right directions, IMHO, and his upcoming releases promise to achieve feature completeness and mass appeal.

Highly recommend kicking the tires. I may even invite him to join SHC so he doesn't risk pissing off HE staff as traffic to his user app thread increases. They love declaring upstarts as "competitors" and then banishing them from the community, which is mighty regrettable. Sound familiar?

ezlo is sinking or swimming (mostly the former) without the benefit of many highly knowledgeable beta testers due to Forum banning. I would not let my dog's dog submit Feedback reports at this stage. At least their employees are (by necessity!) being a lot more responsive, seeing as all the "free labor" has been evicted.

I remember looking at PLEG once... ONCE... and running away. Found Reactor just last year and wonder what I ever did without it.

Funny, guys, here's my younger, braver self trying to educate @Ap15e (remember him? is he here?) on how to accomplish this very thing back in 2009, LOL!
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,1937.0.html

Message me if you ever need an authoritative list of "Ways to Get Censored/Booted in Various HA Forums", lol.

SHC is not on the list

I volunteer to:

1. Hammer on all things msr/vera as released.
2. Proofread any and all documentation.
3. Continue filing bug reports with full data.
4. Periodically send Patrick some beer money! ◄– as should everyone who respects his time and energy