On the constraints, once groups were introduced, I stopped using the constraint subsection unless it was a straightforward rule that did not require groups. I think opinions on this would vary based on the way people have settled in on rule construction and layout. Groups allowed me to consolidate my rule sets, so I have less use for them.

I thought of one other thing that would be helpful to me personally...

Would you or anyone else see any value in an "entity in use by" inspector/report generator? As things got more complex, I found myself doing a little digging when I needed to address a logic issue with an entity used in multiple sections of logic.

I was just going to reply to @Fanan about reading examples on the forum can really help point you in the right direction. @LibraSun posted some examples of some things I was struggling with, and that made all the difference. Carefully dissect the examples, refer back to the docs, and the dots will start to connect.

One thing that I think helped me a whole bunch was an Amazon Prime "The Great Courses" course on programing called "How to Program: Computer Science Concepts and Python Exercises." (only $7.99 a month for access) While it is not an MSR programing language course, it helped give me some foundational knowledge that sort of transfers. An example of this would be the principle of "lists" in Python to help you understand the basics of "arrays" in MSR.

Small steps and little victories will keep you going.

Glad you got it. It is so funny this came up today because I actually had a Schlage direction sheet open to refresh my memory on Zwave exclude and include to move it to Hubitat.

I confirmed the reload issue would trigger the rule, and the updated 22144 resolved that for me.

I know I have said it before, but at this point I honestly can't imagine my automation life without MSR.

Thanks as always Patrick!

+1 on the docs. As a non-programmer, I struggled with what could probably best be described as the lack of prerequisite programming knowledge. I certainly would never expect a programming course in the docs, but examples in the "how-to" section will really help point people like me in the right direction. The installation (docker), logic, and concept sections were excellent for me, but I already had the basic gist of things from Vera Reactor.

+1 on the virtual devices.

Dashboard: I don't know if you view this as a separate but related project, but since MSR concentrates entities in one system, it would be a wonderful addition.

The only other thing I had thought of was a global "pause" button. I had to make lots of controller/device changes at one point, and I found myself looking for a way to put everything on hold while I reconfigured.

I just wanted to say thank you again for everything you have created. MSR has brought a level of maturity to my automation that was not previously possible for me to accomplish at my skill level.

Hi Everyone,

I've been working on an Alexa integration using MSR as the entity source. It seemed to make sense that if we use MSR for a variety of hubs and integrations, why wouldn't we populate the devices we want to use in Alexa from MSR rather than a separate integration from each controller?

It's a few Docker containers (bridge, provisioner, and mosquitto), a Lambda function, and an Amazon Developer Skill for Smart Home. State changes flow through MSR's MQTT add-on (using its "echo" feature) to a small bridge service, which reports them to Alexa — so it's not just polling, Alexa actually finds out the instant something changes.

There's also a small web UI for picking which MSR entities get exposed to Alexa and naming them — no editing config files by hand, just check a box and type a name.

Token management seems solid at this point, and I've been running it for about 4 days while refining it, and I think I'm ready to move everything over to it.

Right now, I've got switches, dimmers, and contact sensors, and I plan to add thermostats in the next few days as I have time.

If there's interest, let me know, and I'll publish the project with some docs when I think it is good enough to release.

Thanks for reading, and big thanks to Patrick for MSR.
Mike

Following you on this @librasun. I had never done anything with docker until MSR, so I have catching up to do in general.

Hi Everyone,

First post here, so hello everyone.

I had time today, so I figured I would get MSR up and running on my Synology Docker. Thanks to the discussions between Patrick and Libra, I had no issues with installation or configuration. I added the stand-alone test controller VeraTest to MSR, and it pulled all the entities on that controller without issue. After some poking around, I decided to add the VeraShop controller to MSR, and it only shows the following under entities.

house mode
Reactor System
user (User Names)
Vera System
VeraShop (reactor ID)

I thought that was odd because VeraTest worked fine.

When I switch to the VeraHouse or VeraTest controllers, all of the expected entities on that controller show up in MSR. When I switch back to VeraShop again, no entities other than what I listed above show up.

There are only two differences I can come up with between all three controllers.

1. VeraTest and VeraHouse are Vera Plus units, and the VeraShop unit is a Vera Secure.
2. VeraHouse is bridged to VeraShop to allow all of the devices on VeraHouse to show up on VeraShop.

Any ideas? I try to work through things myself, but I am stuck short of breaking the bridged system apart. I can certainly do that, but the units are still running my property, so it's the last resort.

Thanks again,
Mike

Edit: Clarification on switching controllers. I am not adding multiple controller, I am shutting down the container, editing the config file, and then starting the container to switch to the different controllers.

I replied to an email you sent me with the output.

Thanks guys,

Yep, @toggledbits, I went to the Maker API app after device creation and selected the devices, but they were not selected when I went back there today. I reselected the devices, restarted MSR, and everything is as expected. Looking at the interface, I think I missed hitting the update button before I left the page.

Ok, back to messing around.

Thanks again

Thank you Libra,

I had an incomplete value in "service" when I was testing. I was so close... damnit.

Works now, and thank you for teaching me something.

I was going to dig into the issue further, but it would be a giant waste of time since MSR eliminates the need for Vera bridging.

Thanks, @Elcid. That was sort of a confusing example because the variable of .011 should not have been there. That was just for testing the device_set_variable action to make sure it worked.

Thanks, @toggledbits. That is exactly what I needed. I was trying to get the value using a getEntity() without double curly braces, so it did not work. When I got the expression to pull in with the proper formatting, I never went back and applied that to the getEntity() command that I was originally trying. I've got it now, and in time I'll get better at this.

@toggledbits I bought 2 test controllers a while back, and I would be more than happy to help any way I can.

Do you have any idea what use case/device interaction scope would look like to give you the data you need?

I am pretty flexible over here...

Synology - Docker
Vera - 1.7.5187 (7.31)
MSR - latest-22144-c2512b52

I have one lock still remaining on a Vera that sl_UserCode won't write reliably. I can confirm this works for me.

Triggered using same code as stored sl_UserCode : Works
Triggered using different code from stored sl_UserCode: Works

Every trigger of the lock updates sl_UserCode_updated with a new value.

I hope this helps.

Edited/amended

For anyone not comfortable messing about with Docker inside of a Synology NAS, these are the steps to update to the new image.

Regardless of what you are doing, It is always good idea to have a backup copy of your reactor data folder.

1. Make note of the "Volume" and "Environment" variable for "TZ"
2. Stop and delete old container
3. Delete old image from the "Images"
4. Download the new image
5. Launch new container with new image
6. Under "General Settings" set container to auto start*
7. Under "Volume" populate reactor data folder used in your previous reactor
8. Under "Port Settings" change local port to 8111
9. Under "Environment" hit the plus sign and add variable "TZ" with the value of your timezone.
10. Apply and launch.

That should be it.

As Patrick stated, none of your configuration data is lost since it exists outside of the container.

Thanks again as always Patrick!

*I missed this one because it had been so long since I had setup from scratch. If you forget to do this a restart inside Reactor will cause a shutdown.

@toggledbits

Fair enough

@cw-kid I was thinking along these lines myself when I asked that question. Any device brought into MSR could then be brought into Home Remote regardless of Home Remote's native support.

Unless I am not understanding something correctly, MSR could be brought in essentially as a hub. If MSR could talk to it, Home Remote could talk to it. More importantly, for something I would like to do, I would like a specific triggered Home Remote function to interact with MSR. (I think you had done this already if I remember correctly)

I think this would open lots of additional automation avenues.

@CatmanV2 Well, at least I know it was not just me. I knew this day was coming because he had said something in August when it was broken that he didn't know if it was fixable because of Apple's API. I am thinking they kicked everything that did not use 2FA authentication.

@therealdb I set up Owntracks on Hubitat because it was easy, and I could play with it. Looks like it is very flexible. How hard is it on the battery? I realize mileage will vary a lot on this, but that was a feature I liked about the iPhone locator app. It ran using Apple's "Find My" that was already running on the phone. It's slow to update, but if I needed to know where the phone was, I would force a poll of location from the app. Since I started refining my logic in MSR I have been using manual polling almost exclusively. Thanks again for the point in this direction.

Thanks for all of the input.

For whatever reason I am having the same spotty relationship with OwnTracks that @CatmanV2 has. One minute I think it's solved, the next minute it's missed a trigger.

With the success others have had, including @gwp1 with the same method of deployment, I must have something wrong. I'll keep working on it as time permits.

Thanks again

@catmanv2 iPhone. I just returned home and it got a location trigger, but it was far from an instant trigger. The phone was in sleep for at least 30 minutes before I crossed the perimeter, and I would say the delay was in the area of 45 seconds.