Doorbell programming

[dentalben]

Does anyone have programming for a doorbell that actually works? I have a CA relay on my doorbell so when it's pressed, the TVs in my house go to the camera on my porch for ~20 seconds so I can see who is there. It's supposed to revert back to whatever state the TV at each location was at prior to the doorbell being pressed (on, off, movie, DISH, etc). Sometimes the TVs work fine, other times if I'm already watching TV, it will go to the porch camera, and then turn the whole TV off. I've attached a PDF file of my programming for the doorbell. Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated!

[thecodeman]

That's some programming you've got there. Give me some time to look through it.

[Sbutter]

Try reseting the variables to zero at the start and at the end of the prgram.

Also, what is exectued with the "Door Bell" annoucement? If the announcement triggers in the Living, Master Bed/Bath, or Kitchen it may be conflicting with your programming .

[thecodeman]

That brings up a good point. Are you sharing the navigator through a matrix switch? If so, you can only call a popup in the room in which the controller is located. Otherwise it's trying to call the popup in all the rooms and can conflict.

[dentalben]

The Doorbell Announcement feature is an Agent that takes a frame of video (makes a jpg image) and displays it on my touch screens. The camera is connected to a video matrix and treated just like an ordinary video source (DVD, TV, etc) as far as the controller is concerned. So while the touch screens display a single frame of when the doorbell was pressed, the TVs show live video until the timer runs out and switches back. I've had this programming in for over a year, but it's never worked 100%. Just wondering if C4 has any ideas on something like this. It would be nice if there were a "status capture" feature in the programming or agents so that when an event occurred (e.g. doorbell pressed), the programming would know the status of a particular room, and then after the event expired, revert back to that same status (off, DISH, DVD, etc).

[Sbutter]

Sometimes the TVs work fine, other times if I'm already watching TV, it will go to the porch camera, and then turn the whole TV off.

You have two TV OFF variables for "0" and "9". The "9" is linked to " If Selected Video Device is Porch Camera". This turns off the TV in the room unexpectedly.

For example, Living Room TV is On with Dish1 and Door Bell Press triggers the following.

Program Step 1 Executes Touch Screen Annoucements

Program Step 2 checks Living Room TV On is True

Program Step 3 checks Living Room Selected to Dish1 is True

Program Step 4 Executes Pause Dish1, Select Video Porch Camera, Variable LivingPorchCam to 2.

Program Step 5 checks Living Room Selected to Dish2 is False

Program Step 6 checks Living Room Selected to DVD Changer is False

Program Step 7 checks Living Room Selected to Wii is False

Program Step 8 checks Living Room Selected to Movie Server is False

Program Step 9 checks Living Room Seletted to PorchCam is True (This is now True because of Step 4 above selecting the PorchCam)

Program Step 10 Executes Select Video to PorchCam and Variable LivingPorchCam to 9.

.....

Program Step 20 checks Variable LivingPorchCam to 9 is now True

Program Step 21 Executes Turn OFF Living Room

To correct the problem I would remove all Variable LivingPorchCam set to 9 commands.

[dentalben]

Thanks for the input. Instead of deleting the Porch Cam line as you suggested, I might try moving it up in the programming. It's an obvious error I made in the programming that results in the TV turning off instead of going back to Dish 1 as you pointed out. The reason I added that is I found sometimes when I'm getting ready in the morning and go to turn my bathroom TV on, the remote says the room is already on the Porch Camera video. So I found that at times the TVs wouldn't turn on if the doorbell rang, and it's because certain TVs thought they were already displaying the porch camera source. I'll move it up in the programming to avoid the conflict and see if that helps. Thanks!

[ILoveC4]

I have heard that for TV's that don't support discrete on/off, using the POWER_STATE variable to track whether the TV is *really* on or not works well.