Posts made by Maipensato | Smart Home

Maipensato

Hi,

I started home automation in 2013 and using Vera controllers from the start. When Reactor plugin became available (super plugin of @toggledbits !!) I transferred all scenes to Reactor.
I must say everything here works still okay and I have a lot of devices, plugins and Reactors. But I fear at some point my Vera's will stop working.
I recognize many of your names here from the Vera forum. I also was banned a couple of years ago.
Recently I decided to switch to Home Assistant. I already transferred some of my zwave devices from Vera to HA and made some new automations.
I must say HA is great and with huge amount of integrations, add-ons, the HACS store and many examples (like blueprints) the opportunites to increase home automation are huge.
HA will be for sure my central system (incl UI)

But... the learning curve is quite steap (YAML is completely different from Lua/luup).
So for the time being I will keep my most complex Reactor automations.
I already found how I can connect/integrate Vera for binairy sensors via webhooks (as an example: changes in my home modes are directly send from Vera to HA).

Now I also want to use some data like sensors or Reactor variables automatically to HA via https requests (put those in Reactor).
I know I can create virtual sensors in HA via templates.

As an example: I have my own PWS with a rainmeter. In Reactor I compare the amount of rain (in mm) in the actual year with historical figures (past 15 years) and calculate the difference actual vs history in % Every day at 0.00h these figures are updated. I defined variables in Reactor and use Multistring plugin (Variable container) to show the data.

I know several specialists in coding with experience in both Vera and HA are active here on this forum.

Who can help me with this ?

Maipensato

Well.... I tried again with "response.lastDayData.energy" and now it works ?? Really don't know what I did wrong, but now it works.

So problem solved.
Many thanks @akbooer

Maipensato

Thanks!

So why does the 2nd option I have mentioned not work?

Maipensato

I still use Vera controllers in combination with ReactorSensors. I have several Reactor sensors in use to retrieve weather data from Wunderground (i have a personal weather station), my smartmeter etc.

Recently I installed solar panels with a SolarEdge inverter. SolarEdge has an API to retrieve my power production data from their cloud.
Output is in json.

So I created a new Reactor Sensor. Connection is working (query okay).
But I encounter problems at the Value Expressions. Either I get ""query okay" but no data or I get "query okay but 1 expressions failed"

This is the json output

{"overview":{"lastUpdateTime":"2023-05-12 10:45:57","lifeTimeData":{"energy":476310.0,"revenue":216.577},"lastYearData":{"energy":433001.0},"lastMonthData":{"energy":433001.0},"lastDayData":{"energy":8262.0},"currentPower":{"power":5647.0},"measuredBy":"INVERTER"}}

So it has different layers/levels.

I tried to put in the Value Expressions field several combinations to get the energy data of today (8262.0), like:

response.lastDayData.energy
response.overview.lastDayData.energy
response.overview.lastUpdateTime.lastDayData.energy

all fail...

Who can help me with this ?

Maipensato

@akbooer Does this update also work for Vera controllers without using openluup or Altui?

Maipensato

@toggledbits Okay clear, thanks for your quick reply!

What about SiteSensor and select response type Generic (text). How can I define a "response pattern to match" in the next field.

It's good to know it's possible within Reactor Sensor but it would be easier (I hope...) to solve it within SiteSensor.

Maipensato

@akbooer many thanks !
Good to know this is possible.
I doubt wether I can use this within SiteSensor.

But I think I can use this within the Reactor plugin with some adaptions in the Lua code. It would have to send the invididual sensor data to the virtual weathersensors like every 30 or 60 seconds.

Or use it within MSR when I would decide to migrate partially of completely from Vera to HA or Hubitat.

@toggledbits can I use this kind of script within SiteSensor ? Hope you can help me in the right direction.

Maipensato

This is on Vera.
xml output:

Maipensato

@toggledbits My PWS uploads data to Wunderground via a Meteobridge device. I just found out I can retrieve live data of my weatherstation via a http request to Meteobridge. So this is a way to to get my weatherdata in Vera via SiteSensor plugin. Without being dependent on external cloudservers like Wunderground.

The only issue is the output is not available in json, only in xml format or plain text. I see that you can select the response type Generic (text) but then you have to define a "response pattern to match" in the next field.
I went though the SiteSensor thread on the Vera forum and found lots of examples for json output but none for generic text output.

The output of the Meteobridge URL looks like:

20221204112238 th0 3.4 84 0.9 1
20221204112301 wind0 112 1.3 1.3 1.5 0
20221204112241 thb0 9.4 59 1.8 1017.0 1017.0 0 0

where first is time stamp, then device id and then all the data.
th0 = temp/hum sensor 3.4 is temp (Celsius) 84 is hum% 0.9 is dewpoint and 1 = lowbat

Can you help me in how to get for example temp and hum values; what should I put in the field "enter pattern to match"

Maipensato

@toggledbits Many thanks for your quick reply! Putting UseCurl on 1 made it working again!
So for now I'm saved.

Now I really have to start looking for another smarthome setup. I now have quite an extensive setup with 3 Vera controllers (Secure and Plus) with a lot of Reactor Sensors and Site Sensors etc. and also a Fibaro HC2 controller.
And I use the Home Remote app that works with both Vera and Fibaro.
I put a lot of hours in it to set this all up and adapt it to my wishes and I must say it works (almost) rocksolid past 2 years.

Have to spend quite some time first to look at all the alternatives coming months. For sure I will find useful information here on this forum (e.g. Home Assistant in combination with your MSR)

Maipensato

I use the excellent SiteSensor plugin of @toggledbits for some years to get the data from my PWS on Wunderground.
This has worked flawlessly but recently it suddenly stopped working.
I see this in my Vera:

When I copy/paste the URL code to be queried in my browser this still works.

This is the URL:
https://api.weather.com/v2/pws/observations/current?stationId=ILIMBURG130&format=json&units=m&numericPrecision=decimal&apiKey=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Patrick (or someone else on this forum) can you help me solve this ?
Many thanks in advance!

Maipensato

Any update? October is approaching..

Maipensato

I also use the Netatmo plugin, not on openLuup but still using Vera. I really hope you can and are willing to update the app.

Maipensato

@rafale77 thanks I will read that first

Maipensato

Ok thank you @therealdb and @rafale77 I have to dig in to how to set up an openVPN server. This is really new to me (meaning I'm not an expert ..).
I have a Unify Dreammachine router.

@therealdb: do you think Vera will release the 7.32 firmware coming weeks ? They have promised end last year it should be released already in January....

Maipensato

I seriously consider to decouple my Vera's from the Vera cloud services. In case they shut the servers down in the near future. You never know....
I have read the readme document on @toggledbits.
And have two questions.
First of all I will lose remote access (via their cloud service). This is a big disadvantage for me. I used Imperihome app in the past to check and if needed control some devices or start some scenes also when I'm not at home. Now I use TheHomeRemote app and this works very well to controll my Vera's and Fibaro Home Center remotely. Good chance I will cange to MSR in the near future.
To make this possible after decoupling my Vera's I need to use port forwarding. I have read on the Vera forum that some users advice not to do this because it is not safe. After some further googling I find very contradictive opinions wether using port forwarding is safe or not.
So what is the opinion of the experts on this forum? Is it really not safe and why ? How can I reduce the safety risks ?

Second question: should I wait for the upcoming 7.32 firmware update of Vera (I know some of you are beta testing this), is it wortwile?

Maipensato

Well....since this morning I cannot login to the vera forum anymore.. Account suspended for 1000 years. No warnings at all. What a joke....The almighty dictator that cannot endure any criticism and breaks every forum rule himself again proves what kind of person he is. Really unbelievable his recent behaviour towards rigpapa and akbooer !! Well I don't bother at all. Seeing the lack of progress in Ezlo controllers these will not be part of my (future) home automation system.
@toggledbits: I liked your reactions towards the dictator (probably the reason he suspended me) and I really fully behind you !!
@akbooer: ridiculous that the dictator calls you a thief (you stole away "his"customers). He'\s very good in chasing them all away himself.

I use Vera controllers for almost 8 years now. Honestly I'm quite happy with how they function right now. Thanks to the great research and tips of @rafale77 and switching all my scenes to the magnificent Reactor plugin it is now working (although with on average 1 luup reload per day). My setup is quite complex and next to a lot of zwave devices I also use the plugins for e.g. Hue, Sonos, Netatmo, Milight, RFXcom, smartmeter, Datamine2. For short term I will consider decoupling my Veras from the Vera servers and/or start using Openluup. First dig in to this a little more, I already noticed this forum is very informative about all the options.

I think much more members are banned now from the vera forum. Because if they ban me for liking the posts of rigpapa.... well I was not the only one.
@toggledbits: are you still allowed by the almighty dictator?

Maipensato

[SOLVED] reactor_inet_check script... and containers

Migration Vera to HA > how to send sensor data from Vera to HA?

[Solved] Migrating MSR to Docker on Proxmox

Runtime error latest-24366 when Create New Reaction

Reactor (Multi-System/Multi-Hub) Announcements

'Random' lights turning on

Hello and first network question

Vera reload detected where there does not appear to be one.

Has something changed with the "Changes" operator in Constraint groups ?

Reactor-Editor / Reactor-ui-Status Errors

[Solved] Error dialog running reaction in build 24302

every X days field uneditable

[Reactor] Use VirtualEntityController actions to drive a Reolink spotlight

Darker Reactor style

Which user to install nodejs as ? Debian Linux

OpenAI Controller for Reactor

Thanksgiving lighting took a holiday

[How-to] Managing holidays in Reactor

Reference error - null object

Trouble Configuring Multi-System Reactor Logic Across Devices

Posts