Keypad Programming Ideas?

[cdepaola]

Just curious what other things ya'll are doing with your keypads.  I've got one at each entrance to the house that we've configured as three buttons, top being hello, bottom being goodbye, and the middle controlling the local load.  As I walk into the master bedroom I've got a keypad that controls the local load and on the top/bottom and the middle does goodnight. 

 

I've also got two keypads in the kitchen, one is a three button that does three scenes, and the other does some local lighting, a media scene, and volume. This one is a mix-mosh and still not happy with it either. 

 

With that said I'd like to hear what others are programming, scenes they have made, etc...  Just looking for ideas so we can finalize a plan and eventually get engraved keys so my family actually knows how to use the darn lights. 

 

[CFUG]

^Yeah, pretty much doing what you're doing.  Since I'm the only one working the 6BTs, I have one, two and three taps all working.  I use a toggle var to cycle through three preset Rhapsody/TuneIn stations- that's one button.  Two others for room lighting with everyday & party modes on both.  I have some three-stage lighting (5, 10 or all 15 lights on) on another button and bottom buttons are reserved for OFF functions.  LEDs change between various colors to warn of devices left ON, alarm emailings in effect and even rain falling at the preset time (front and rear door 6BTs).

 

The only thing I'm doing with 3BTs is audio.  One button is a program cycler the middle button is three-stage loudness and bottom is used for selecting next cut (Rhapsody only) or powering down the zone.

[RyanE]

My 6-button setup is as follows:

 

The left 3 buttons are the Basement, Main Floor, and Upstairs lights.  I use my Light Usage Agent driver to control the LEDs, as well as use a single-tap of any button to turn the lights on that floor off (double-tap to restore).  The Light Usage agent is setup to show green if any lights are on, yellow if a *lot* of lights are on, and red if *nearly all* lights are on.  Since I still mainly use incandescents (plan to start phasing in dimmable LEDs at some point this year), I like to turn lights off when not needed.

 

The right top two buttons are my garage doors, they're red when opened, and off (black) when closed.

 

The bottom right button I use to toggle the 'auto lights' mode that gets turned on automatically every night.  This allows me to turn auto lights off, if I decide I don't want lights triggering on motion sensors as I move through the house or out on the porch.

 

My motivation and main use for the 6-buttons is to know the status of the lighting and garage doors, and I can see them from across a room or rooms with the LEDs, so it works well for what I am trying to do.

 

RyanE

[CFUG]

Right.  Just to support the above post, I too use the LEDs for alerting quite a bit.  I still love the Eragy Watts On thingy but the LED status is much handier.

[mstafford388]

A lot of times we use a button by the entry door to toggle vacation mode.  When it is on we will randomize some lighting, send text notifications if the security system is disarmed or goes off, things like that.  

[Cyknight]

House off, often on double tap for lights only, triple for lights and a/v plus arm security.

Goodnight/hello scenes. 'Party' modes for joining zones together, floor control as mentioned.

Beyond that, fireplace controls, timers for tv/audio/light (with LED color control to indicate time left).

In some scenarios they are lights only, linked to singles or scenes (reduced wall clutter scenario with actual light control hidden/panel lighting).

Household with (young) kids often used is turning on favorite channels (and set volume) so they can turn things on themselves easily - color coded for channel/person.

Blinds are another often used function with up/down/stop on a set of three or similar settings.

 

Those would be the more common ones, of course the possibilities are nearly endless...

[fprefect]

Double tap the 'Watch TV' button in the bedroom turns on the TV and sets a 60 minute sleep timer. 

I also have a 6 button keypad in the mudroom and one in the master bedroom dedicated to monitoring my garage doors, shed door, and status of exterior locks.  Double-clicking any will toggle their state.

In each room, there is at least one keypad or keypad dimmer which has audio on and audio off buttons for the bottom two buttons.  Single tap FM, double tap XM, triple tap AM.

Goodnight button at the bottom of the stairs which turns off all downstairs lights and TVs/Audio, turns off all exterior lights, turns on security lights, arms security system to 'Stay', and lights pathway to the bedrooms.

Outside button in Master bedroom and by front door to turn on/off all outside lights, in case something went bump in the night...

Two buttons in kitchen to page each of the kids using the announcement agent.

 

Dan

[sevendustweb]

A lot of these ideas sound awesome. Would you mind posting some of the programming?

Thanks!

[jmb]

My 6-button setup is as follows:

 

The left 3 buttons are the Basement, Main Floor, and Upstairs lights.  I use my Light Usage Agent driver to control the LEDs, as well as use a single-tap of any button to turn the lights on that floor off (double-tap to restore).  The Light Usage agent is setup to show green if any lights are on, yellow if a *lot* of lights are on, and red if *nearly all* lights are on. 

Ryan, I want to do something similar on my 6 pad.   Did you create the Light Usage agent?   Can you provide any additional details?

 

Thanks in advance.

[C4 User]

In addition to some of the usages described above, for each room in my house I have advanced lighting scenes set up for HOUSE occupied and HOUSE unoccupied that run off of a schedule and/or ambient light levels depending on the room. I also have advanced scenes set up for each room that can be selected when the room is occupied.

My buttons then allow the family to selection one of the occupied scenes or put the room back into unoccupied (which is auto). Other buttons are then simply linked to individual lights, fire place, etc. Or, they tell the status of doors, locks, garage doors, alarm, etc.

For the room occupied scenes, I have Room 1, Room 2, Room 3 - and scenes 1, 2, 3 generally build from low level lighting to all lights on high. In the home theater I have scenes for movie play, movie pause, tv off (I need time to get out of the room before all the lights go off),

This all comes from years of dealer programming and was rather unstable in the earlier versions of composer, but 2.6 seems to have add both speed and stability........be careful what you wish for .