What Did You Automate Today?

[Pounce]

33 minutes ago, Amr said:

I just got rid of all Xiaomi Zigbee buttons and Sockets and used beautiful RF buttons instead, nothing wrong with Xiaomi Zigbee, but it an isolated island with no integration to C4!

These new RF buttons are fabulous $4 a piece, 1, 2, 3 and 4 buttons in one tiny size, just amazing  

Mystery product or something you want to share?

[Amr]

12 minutes ago, Pounce said:

Mystery product or something you want to share?

Not at all you all know either banggood or Aliexpress! I have nothing to hide

433Mhz RF Wireless Remote Control Switch Transmitter With 1 2 3 4 Button For Home Room Hall Bedroom Smart Home from Consumer Electronics on banggood.com https://banggood.app.link/3aI5Rt3GX7

[Pounce]

ha! interesting and weird button shapes. Can't decide if those are 4 clovers, butts, hearts or ?!?

What the one hole on the perimeter? IS that a through hole or what?

[RyanE]

19 minutes ago, Pounce said:

What the one hole on the perimeter? IS that a through hole or what?

Looking at some of the other similar items, I'm guessing it's an LED that lights up when you press one of the buttons.

The different styles are 1/2/3/4-button, and you'd need a Sonoff RF receiver and driver for it.

Cute.

I don't know what security protocol they use, etc., but for 'quick hit' toggling things in the house, super cheap... 

RyanE

 

[Amr]

42 minutes ago, Pounce said:

ha! interesting and weird button shapes. Can't decide if those are 4 clovers, butts, hearts or ?!?

What the one hole on the perimeter? IS that a through hole or what?

LED indicator

[Amr]

22 minutes ago, RyanE said:

Looking at some of the other similar items, I'm guessing it's an LED that lights up when you press one of the buttons.

The different styles are 1/2/3/4-button, and you'd need a Sonoff RF receiver and driver for it.

Cute.

I don't know what security protocol they use, etc., but for 'quick hit' toggling things in the house, super cheap... 

RyanE

 

Spot on with your answers, its Sonoff standard RF and I do use it for Bedside lights, and most light toggle, super nice and quick

[zaphod]

Can you pleaser provide a link to the buttons and the receiver?  Thanks.

[Pounce]

2 hours ago, RyanE said:

 and you'd need a Sonoff RF receiver and driver for it.

Yes, that would work, but you aren't limited to Sonoff. There are other ways to do 433.

MQTT being all the rage these days one can consider using a gateway firmware on a Sonoff bridge like https://docs.openmqttgateway.com/ . One of the nicer features of the firmware is that you can cluster them to cover a larger home or site by using Multiple devices.

[Amr]

The Sonoff RF bridge is a $5 device as well, just google it it’s available in Amazon. I flashed it with Tasmota and have 8 around the house to have a full RF coverage! I use Berto.io drivers to integrate to C4 and to program RF buttons.

 

[msgreenf]

ok, next fun automation!  

New Hardware used:

$13 TP-Link HS200 wifi switch

Existing:

Garage door contact sensor

Human door contact sensor

Drivers:

Advanced Lighting timer drivers

Goal:

Automate Garage lights to turn on when either door is opened so that the garage is fully illuminated when you step into it.  

Configuration:

Used the advanced lighting timer driver to configure the driver in an "Or" configuration with the 2 sensors.  If either sensor is open, then turn on the light for 5 minutes.  When both sensors are closed, end the function and set a 2 min delay before the lights turn off.

Outcome:

My 3yr old son discovered it on his own and he told me something magic happened in the garage

The advanced lighting timer from Domonspaians is pure magic!  It is hands down one of the top 10 Control4 drivers.  It's the swiss army knife of lighting timers.  https://drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/lighting/advanced-lighting-timer/ 

[HomeAutomationNerd]

Not quite Control4, but today I cleaned out and organized my networking closet. When last the electrician was at my house, he turned off a breaker and all my networking gear shutdown, despite it being on a UPS. Turns out the Xfinity Powered Coax Distribution grid had been hard-wired into the wall, and wasn't on the UPS - so when it lost power, there was no Internet. 

My primary networking closet:

1. APC UPS
2. C4 CA1
3. DSC IT-100
4. Unifi 24 Port POE Switch
5. Unifi Security Gateway Pro
6. Unifi Cloud Key
7. Xfinity Router
8. Hue Hub

To my frustration, the CAT-5 cables in the networking closet are too short to reach the 1/2 rack I had sitting around. While the closet is now organized, it's sitting on wire shelves rather than in a rack. Ah well.

[HomeAutomationNerd]

17 hours ago, msgreenf said:

[Domonspaians]

It is hands down one of the top 10 Control4 drivers.  

What are the other 9? Teach me, Obi-Wan!

[Steelermedallion]

@Msgreenf I’d like to learn how to do that in my garage. (What you outlined- although perhaps with motions that I have???

Also, Never been monitor that the state of the garage and open/close remotely. Could you help me?:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[South Africa C4 user]

Not really a new automation, but today I finalised my move from an old blind bridge (Trendy Stuff) with its own driver set to a Bond Bridge and the Domosapiens generic blind driver (I have this driver installed for my Somfy blinds at my beach house and love it).  I only recently discovered it handles Bond Bridge also so I can use it at my primary residence also.  I previously had 2 presets for my blinds (partial and half) which I trigger via voice commands and Alexa.  This took some fairly complicated code as the blinds are very basic so this was all achieved via starts and stops with delays.  The code had to cater for knowing where the blinds were currently and moving them from there (open, closed, partial or half) to the relevant pre-set (partial or half).

Most of today’s coding (upgrade) involved removing reams of semi intelligent code which I had put in place previously.  At the end of the day, I am really impressed with how easily the driver handles these presets.  I have replaced (literally) hundreds of lines of code with 20 or so (catering for presets of each of the 6 blinds Individually and as a group and all controlled via Voice Control using the Chowmain IFTTT Driver).

Someone asked earlier in this topic what the top 10 C4 drivers are and both the Domosapiens Generic blind driver (Somfy and Bond Bridge) and the Chowmain IFTTT Driver would make that list for me.

I need to try out the Domosapiens Advanced Lighting timer that’s @msgreenf always raves about.  I get the feeling that my experience with that driver will be similar to today’s experience with the blinds driver.  Namely remove 100’s of lines of code that I currently have in place for the purpose and get the same result and, more importantly for me, have a setup that it is easy to expand on.  For instance, in terms of the blinds,  I can now add a few more presets on my blinds if I want and this will take seconds not days...

Back to the Domosapiens Generic blind driver - easy to set up for Bond and Somfy and the control and feedback is top class.

[msgreenf]

What are the other 9? Teach me, Obi-Wan!

Let's see...

In no order

Room control
IFTTT
Bond
Alarm driver - insert your flavor
Hvac driver - insert your flavor

Maybe it's a top 6?
But with this collection there is virtually nothing you can't automate

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

[msgreenf]

Not really a new automation, but today I finalised my move from an old blind bridge (Trendy Stuff) with its own driver set to a Bond Bridge and the Domosapiens generic blind driver (I have this driver installed for my Somfy blinds at my beach house and love it).  I only recently discovered it handles Bond Bridge also so I can use it at my primary residence also.  I previously had 2 presets for my blinds (partial and half) which I trigger via voice commands and Alexa.  This took some fairly complicated code as the blinds are very basic so this was all achieved via starts and stops with delays.  The code had to cater for knowing where the blinds were currently and moving them from there (open, closed, partial or half) to the relevant pre-set (partial or half).
Most of today’s coding (upgrade) involved removing reams of semi intelligent code which I had put in place previously.  At the end of the day, I am really impressed with how easily the driver handles these presets.  I have replaced (literally) hundreds of lines of code with 20 or so (catering for presets of each of the 6 blinds Individually and as a group and all controlled via Voice Control using the Chowmain IFTTT Driver).
Someone asked earlier in this topic what the top 10 C4 drivers are and both the Domosapiens Generic blind driver (Somfy and Bond Bridge) and the Chowmain IFTTT Driver would make that list for me.
I need to try out the Domosapiens Advanced Lighting timer that’s @msgreenf always raves about.  I get the feeling that my experience with that driver will be similar to today’s experience with the blinds driver.  Namely remove 100’s of lines of code that I currently have in place for the purpose and get the same result and, more importantly for me, have a setup that it is easy to expand on.  For instance, in terms of the blinds,  I can now add a few more presets on my blinds if I want and this will take seconds not days...
Back to the Domosapiens Generic blind driver - easy to set up for Bond and Somfy and the control and feedback is top class.

I think you are right. Try it out! I think you will find that things you always wanted to do but dreaded doing dude all the programming will slip away. For example I have my motion sensors on a weekend schedule versus a weekday schedule and it is two scheduled events and no code to make that happen. Next up is figuring out the best calendar integration for me and how to bring in the right type of events to do holidays without too much maintenance

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

[South Africa C4 user]

6 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Let's see...

In no order

Room control
IFTTT
Bond
Alarm driver - insert your flavor
Hvac driver - insert your flavor

Maybe it's a top 6?
But with this collection there is virtually nothing you can't automate

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk
 

I’d go (also in no particular order):

Janus Technology - BMS monitor

Cinegration - Flo

Domosapiens - Generic Blinds (Somfy and Bond)

Domosapiens - DSC

Domosapiens - Security enhancements (if you don’t have a Domosapiens security Driver)

Jooced - Text to Speech

Jooced - Push Notification images

Chowmain - IFTTT

Chowmain - Notification Suite

Chowmain - Experience Button Suite

Chowmain - Bond Bridge

Yatun - Thermostat display

Yatun - calculator 

BNet - bTimer

Bnet - bEgauge

Blackwire - Emoji

Greenfield - Renamer (I use this less now as my system is relatively stable... but this was my most used driver at one stage).

Annex4 - LG driver (deserves a mention as Toast messages takes basic TV integration to another level).

Coolmaster (not sure off the top of my head who’s driver this is).

I ignored Room Control (as this is a native C4 driver and my list was 3rd party drivers) but agree with MS that this is a great driver. I use all of these drivers daily and will definitely be trying the Domosapiens Advanced Lighting timer when I find a gap. The Cinegration Agents package also looks interesting!

I’m probably missing some as there are a lot of cool drivers out there.

 

[msgreenf]

todays task

When you open the screen outside on the patio and the outside temp is over 75, turn the fan on.

Hardware:

Existing: Somfy motorized screen + Bond Hub

New: The Bond retrofit fan kit

Drivers:

Bond driver

weather station driver

Programming:

Event: Screen opening: If WeatherStation Outside Temp >=70 then turn on Fan

Bonus:

When you close the screen --> If fan is on, turn it off

[South Africa C4 user]

Today I turned the LED on the top button of my bedside keypad into a virtual clock (sort of).  I am a little OCD and when I wake up during the night, I like to know what time it is.  Lighting up my bedside clock drives my wife nuts.

So I have programmed an LED to follow the colours of the rainbow when the light is off at night, blue when on and black when off during the day...

In theory this works as follows:

9-12 : LED is red

12-1 : LED is orange

1-2 : LED is yellow

2-3 : LED is green

3-4 : LED is light blue

4-5 : LED is indigo (read pink)

5-6 : LED is violet (looks like dark blue to me)

Thereafter it is black.

Double clicking the button toggles the virtual clock (in case it drives me nuts).

Will be interesting to see if it works tonight!

[Time2Jet]

Garage Door with Nyce tilt sensor and remote solder method to EA-5 relay. Literally about 20 minutes and maybe $75 total? Awesome integration. Was able to drill a hole in the back of the remote and nicely (smaller Linear 3 button (oval) remote) tidy the wires and leave the buttons working. Velcro to the rack. Clean and straight forward. Albeit, I suck at soldering.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Time2Jet]

Today I turned the LED on the top button of my bedside keypad into a virtual clock (sort of).  I am a little OCD and when I wake up during the night, I like to know what time it is.  Lighting up my bedside clock drives my wife nuts.

So I have programmed an LED to follow the colours of the rainbow when the light is off at night, blue when on and black when off during the day...

In theory this works as follows:

9-12 : LED is red

12-1 : LED is orange

1-2 : LED is yellow

2-3 : LED is green

3-4 : LED is light blue

4-5 : LED is indigo (read pink)

5-6 : LED is violet (looks like dark blue to me)

Thereafter it is black.

Double clicking the button toggles the virtual clock (in case it drives me nuts).

Will be interesting to see if it works tonight!

I don’t hate this. I’m always trying to read my little Alexa Show at all hours without my glasses. You may be on to something here. I think I would do the whole room this way.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[OceanDad]

9 minutes ago, time2jet said:

Garage Door with Nyce tilt sensor and remote solder method to EA-5 relay. Literally about 20 minutes and maybe $75 total? Awesome integration. Was able to drill a hole in the back of the remote and nicely smaller Linear 3 button (oval) remote. Velcro to the rack. Clean and straight forward. Albeit, I suck at soldering.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I did the same the other day.  Had a Z2IO laying around so no cost there.  Found a spare remote in a drawer.  Only cost was a $15 magnetic sensor mounted to the rail/drilled to the door.  Works like a charm, and easy to program off.  MyQ can go and piss up a rope as far as I'm concerned.

[South Africa C4 user]

On 8/21/2020 at 9:47 PM, South Africa C4 user said:

Today I turned the LED on the top button of my bedside keypad into a virtual clock (sort of).  I am a little OCD and when I wake up during the night, I like to know what time it is.  Lighting up my bedside clock drives my wife nuts.

So I have programmed an LED to follow the colours of the rainbow when the light is off at night, blue when on and black when off during the day...

In theory this works as follows:

9-12 : LED is red

12-1 : LED is orange

1-2 : LED is yellow

2-3 : LED is green

3-4 : LED is light blue

4-5 : LED is indigo (read pink)

5-6 : LED is violet (looks like dark blue to me)

Thereafter it is black.

Double clicking the button toggles the virtual clock (in case it drives me nuts).

Will be interesting to see if it works tonight!

I changed this from an LED to a very dim backlight colour (which is easier on the eye at night) and also added it to our bathroom keypad and must say it is working wonders for me already (in terms of not grabbing a phone to see what time it is!)

[prabeau]

On 8/21/2020 at 3:47 PM, South Africa C4 user said:

Today I turned the LED on the top button of my bedside keypad into a virtual clock (sort of).  I am a little OCD and when I wake up during the night, I like to know what time it is.  Lighting up my bedside clock drives my wife nuts.

So I have programmed an LED to follow the colours of the rainbow when the light is off at night, blue when on and black when off during the day...

In theory this works as follows:

9-12 : LED is red

12-1 : LED is orange

1-2 : LED is yellow

2-3 : LED is green

3-4 : LED is light blue

4-5 : LED is indigo (read pink)

5-6 : LED is violet (looks like dark blue to me)

Thereafter it is black.

Double clicking the button toggles the virtual clock (in case it drives me nuts).

Will be interesting to see if it works tonight!

I have a clock projection on ceiling, no colours to remember 

[South Africa C4 user]

4 hours ago, prabeau said:

I have a clock projection on ceiling, no colours to remember 

Nice! Would probably be too bright for me... but I love the idea!

Fortunately, being OCD, I can figure out the rainbow colours easily.  I though of moving to red, orange green (robot colours) if rainbow colours was too much but I am already loving my rainbow colours and translating the time easily in my head - I am not quite sure what that says about me though!