I've just completed my setup (after exactly 3 years from moving in, priorities!) and even if I wrote all the code in C#, I could port it easily to LUA (I guess )

I've used Fully Kiosk Browser + 3D Printed Mount (check https://makesbymike.com/) and a custom HTML dashboard, all running on an Amazon Fire Tablet:

WAF is very high

Sorry for the Italian interface. First row is temperature/humidity sensors (esterno = outside, piscina = pool, salotto = open space, zona giorno = 1st floor, zona notte = 2nd floor, lavanderia = laundry room).
Then I have a bunch of commands/scenes sent to Vera to change blinds/roller shutters (they are automatically managed, but wife pretends to be smarter than code, from time to time ). Last row has notifications for washer/dryer, with the cycle end date. When doing its cycle, the background becomes orange, then green when completed. It's probably the best feature, since the laundry room is in the basement. There's also a link to cams (videosorveglianza) and I automatically open TinyCamPro in case of movement outside/doors/gates are opened.

Is there any interest in a generic wall mount tablet plug-in, offering simple dashboard (maybe json-driven) and integration with Fully Kiosk API?

I'm currently dimming screen on/off, get the battery status and schedule a 20-80 cycle for the battery, via a smart plug and a bunch of lua code. I planned for this when I did the electrical setup, so the tablet has a standard european 503 (recessed) box with ethernet, that I attached to the 5V into the network closet to feed the tablet. I'm updating the screen via AJAX every 30 secs.

Here's a behind the scenes photo as well

I've moved all the triggers and rules to MSR now, and I'm pushing everything to my MQTT broker for further integration, but some code is still on my Vera because it's easier at the moment. I've moved back a lot of code to my C# based tool, because it's easier for me.

After a full week of use, I've got a couple of desiderata to further improve this wonderful tool:

• I would like to see the logs in the web UI. I'm frequently tweaking things and opening an SSH connection just to see the latest logs is overkill. Maybe something to see the streaming logs will be perfect, but refreshing them is OK
• More info about reactions latest execution - or the ability to see them via MQTT. Ideally, show me the latest 4-5 executions
• start page directly to status, instead of about, after the first time I've seen the license
• the ability search for device ID/alias in the Entity Action's Chose Entity window - I've spent years in my Vera and I know the IDs instead of the name - sad but true story
• a way to see controllers' status and their health in the UI - and maybe start/stop them individually, because I'm seeing there's a start and a stop action in the controller base class
• the ability to use an MQTT message as a trigger/condition - I'm effectively using the MQTT bus as a communication bus, so all my things (including Vera) are sending MQTT messages for various things, like notifications, TTS, cams, etc - this is handy because I can add independent reactions to statuses in different part of my system/using different tools
• support for re-ordering in mobile browser (iOS, for me)
• a tool to see where I'm using an entity, as trigger or condition

Keep them as suggestion, no pressure. Thanks for the hard work @toggledbits !

As another one asked for it on the other forum, I finally created a new plug-in for Telegram notifications: https://github.com/dbochicchio/vera-Telegram/

You can:

• send text messages
• send (still) images
• send videos (gif or mp4)
• send silent notifications

I remember @CatmanV2 was searching for something similar (maybe?).

I'm using it to send push notifications to me and my wife, using a group. I have my own code streaming my cameras and sending a video as gif based on certain events (ie motion sensors or door/entryways left open). While this part is not included into the plug-in, if you're able to get a video yourself (by pointing to a URL), you'd good to go. Still images from cams (or, let's say, your favorite weather map, or any video/gif/image on the Interner ot local) are supported as well.

100% compatible with bot Vera and openLuup (where it was developed, anyway).

Feel free to ask questions or suggest new features.

@librasun thanks, but I have a job (well, I’m joking with my colleagues that I’m probably doing 6-7 jobs at once) and I’m doing this for the pleasure to give back and find new friends (and because I used to travel a lot and this year I had a lot of free time). So, as I’ve already said to others (@Pabla is here too) I’d appreciate if you could donate to groups trying to create a more inclusive environment, ie promoting a dev career for girls or minorities. Thanks

I just released v2 of my Virtual HTTP Devices Plug-in. As always, 100% local, 100% standard, mobile friendly and working on openluup/altui as well.
GitHub

dbochicchio/vera

LUA Scripts for the eZlo Vera Platform (UI7). Contribute to dbochicchio/vera development by creating an account on GitHub.

What’s new in v2:

• Master/Children: now you can just create a master and have any number of children attached. They will still work separately, but this will greatly improve memory consumption on Vera. Please see GitHub for guidance on migration. No need to do it unless you have many devices on your system.
• async update of device's status. If you want to update the status of your device separately, just return something different than the HTTP code 200/300 family. it’s useful if your device doesn’t complete the response with the call and you want to update its status. Just use a normal Vera call to update the corresponding variable
  -added support for Scene Controllers (see my post in Shelly i3 for a use case)
• more work around switches/heaters
• stabilization and fixes

Get it from GitHub or from AltAppStore.

Well, I think it has a meaning when we add dashboards to the mix. I’ll vote for it, plus combo device (like HA) to express complex devices. I’m using this approach right now in my own dashboard system.

@librasun The plug-in will take care of it. So, just set configured to 0 and it will install it.

I've had a very busy week, but tomorrow I'll have more time to re-try from scratch. Keep in mind that this is using some internal amazon stuff and the chances that they changed something is high. Anyway, it should not create <s>... unless you have announcements enabled. I'll take a deeper look tomorrow. I've tested with 7.32 beta, but not this build, and it worked, but I've not tested all the possibile variants.

No JavaScript needed. Let me take some time later today to prepare something when I’m back home. I did something similar for water valves.

I think lua drivers for devices is a win-win situation, applied to a store to easily distribute them. And local APIs are coming too. It seems they’re doing the opposite of eZlo here…

So, I was messing with my Alexa routines and ha bridge, and I want to share something very cool you could do with the ability to get the last Alexa that heard your command. I mentioned it a couple of times on the old place, but Vera's OS is missing the jq package, but openLuup could have it installed.

Basically, just execute -lastalexa with my VeraAlexa plug-in:

local lastAlexa = luup.call_action("urn:bochicchio-com:serviceId:VeraAlexa1", 
  "RunCommand",
  {Command="-lastalexa"}, 666)

Then use it in your scene, to dynamically generate your TTS response with the device you've asked your question seconds before!

local temperature = 25 -- get it from your sensor
luup.call_action("urn:bochicchio-com:serviceId:VeraAlexa1", 
  "Say",
  {Text="Ok, outise temperature is " .. temperature .. " degree", Volume=50, GroupZones= lastAlexa, Repeat = 2}, 666

Very cool indeed

I have the very same problem with scene controllers. In a case, writing 0 to the variable is enough. In another one, 0 will stop any further update to the variable until I restart the luup engine. In this case the only workaround I found was to monitor the variable via luup code and write a new variable (ie last scene time) that I’ll monitor in MSR.

While powerful, I still think home assistant dashboards are basic. That’s why I have my own container within my own web server, where I just embed them (via a custom front end plugin that’s called kiosk or something similar, that’s just hiding the header and sidebar). Ymmv.

@perh dashboards can be added to the menu and you can customize which one is shown for a given user in settings.

I prefer separate dashboards instead of tabs, because it’s easier to embed them in a tablet kiosk.

@toggledbits I’ve found an old post with plain reactor and the same problem. So, while getting the buttons is doable, if the same scene happens again, it will not update (while with luup variable_watch you’ll be notified anyway). I’m trying a couple of different approaches, but setting the variables to something different will stop the report until a luup reload. We’ll see.

Ok, I’ve used the first approach after my initial post and it’s working. I’m intrigued by the other parts and I’ll take a look later today to the docs, since I want to apply this logic to my logic for the solar excess. Thanks.

@toggledbits yeah, I’m still struggling with repeated events, but I’ll eventually win

So, "later this week" has become "let's wait two months to find some spare time"

I've finally traced the problem (and ported quite everything else), and that's because a couple of devices are only updating sl_CentralScene /sl_CentralSceneAttr, so watching for the regular scene controller capability has no effect. I've since migrated the old code to MSR rule sets and I'm happy now, since there's no code runing on the Vera itself, besides a couple of callbacks to filter wrong values and a notification to know when luup is restarted.

So, I have a rule set that it's triggered when a local variable changes. Since it's tied to my solar production, it could change very frequently, so I've just added a reset delay to calm it down, but it's not working as intended.

What I really need is a way to, let's say, define a percentage and define a variable to understand if the new value has changed +/- 10% before going true.

I've tried a couple of ways, but I'm posting here anyway, in case anyone has found a better way to tackle this. Thanks!

For anyone trying to do the same in future, here's what I did, in detail:

• I defined a global variable named scenefrommqtt (leave it empty, so it's settable)
• I'm publishing an MQTT message under reactor/mqtt/Expr/scenefrommqtt/set, with value "mykey" (the quotes are important)
• On Reactor's side, I'm using the variable as a trigger, using the same name defined for the Rule Set

It's working very well for me, and it's easy to setup. Thanks @toggledbits for both MSR and for pushing me to think of current features, instead of asking for new complicated ones

Now I have just one single vera code running, and I'll migrate it later, leaving the Vera just as a glorified ZWave bridge until it'll work.

I have to define something to parse the payload because I really don’t want to define too many rule set just to intercept messages. But it’s not too different than parsing a json after an http call, or transform entities values in expressions.

The choice is up to you, but this is not uncommon for power users to use mqtt to send/receive values from different systems and I’m not that interested in having a bus message representing an entity, so an an UI artifact.

As I didn’t wanted to invest too much time, I’ve accomplished the same by sending a numeric value to an an expression and I’m using it as a trigger. I already have a system that’s it’s able to intercept specific mqtt messages with a simple configuration and I’ll continue to use it. Thanks anyway for the pointers.