Every Minute Repeating Timer?

[Southerncentralrain]

I am guessing this is a bad idea but thought I would ask. I was considering having a repeating timer that checks different things . I am assuming this would put a major burden on the system. Is that correct? If so, what would you guys consider a reasonable interval to run periodic checks on things?

[jlemonakis]

Check things like what? Status of certain devices? 

[Cyknight]

In and of itself running a timer is not a huge system burden it's more what you do on it expiring.

 

But yeah - what are you trying to check on - status of a device? If so it's better to program off of a status change which should already catch what you're likely trying to do.

[Southerncentralrain]

What had me consider a repeating timer for checking things like this was a situation with our fire bowls. They are scheduled to come on before dark and about half the time only one would come. We would manually turn them off, wait a bit and turn them back on and both would usually work then.

I was going to put temperature monitors near the flame of the fire bowls (under the fire bowl rocks) and periodically check if they were lit that way. If one was lit and not the other, turn them off, wait 3 minutes, then start them back up. Obviously, this check wouldn't require a 1 minute interval (and the fire bowl situation should be fixed this week) but it made me curious if this was a feasible way to check things.

Another example would be taking over the AC/Heat logic from the Nest units. There needs to be periodic checks for room temps to decide if it needs to be cool mode or heat mode etc. 

[Cyknight]

15 hours ago, Southerncentralrain said:

There needs to be periodic checks for room temps to decide if it needs to be cool mode or heat mode etc. 

Don't they have auto mode? That should alleviate the need to switch to begin with. Or stop using Nest

For this though I would assume you wouldn't need to use a timer - easier to simply create the programming in a Macro, create an hourly scheduled event and trigger the Macro.

15 hours ago, Southerncentralrain said:

it made me curious if this was a feasible way to check things

It technically is - and as mentioned running a timer in and of itself isn't going to bog down the system overly much - but I would avoid doing a lot of these types of options - doing a dozen of them may get different, especially on shorter intervals/

It's not so much the running timers, as the constant executing of the programming attached.

 

[C4 User]

I would start the timer when the fire bowls are turned on for 3 minutes, then look at the temperature of each fire bowl and restart it if necessary, only 1 or 2 times. If it does not light with 2 or 3 attempts, send yourself a text message for manual intervention.

Separately, when they are turned off, you might program off of a change in temperature of each fire bowl and alert if the temperature indicates the bowl is on when it should not be on.

[Southerncentralrain]

Thanks to you both for the ideas and insight. 

8 hours ago, Cyknight said:

Don't they have auto mode? That should alleviate the need to switch to begin with. Or stop using Nest

For this though I would assume you wouldn't need to use a timer - easier to simply create the programming in a Macro, create an hourly scheduled event and trigger the Macro.

It technically is - and as mentioned running a timer in and of itself isn't going to bog down the system overly much - but I would avoid doing a lot of these types of options - doing a dozen of them may get different, especially on shorter intervals/

It's not so much the running timers, as the constant executing of the programming attached.

 

The nests definitely have an auto mode but I think I can do better with my own logic in composer.   It learns when it is adjusted and it isn't always adjusted when it should (e.g. one of my daughters tells me they were cold last night and they didn't change the thermostat). Also, we currently have 6 Nests thermostats so I find it easier to make those changes in 1 place (Composer). I am currently doing the checks/changes via the scheduler as you recommended. 

 

1 hour ago, C4 User said:

I would start the timer when the fire bowls are turned on for 3 minutes, then look at the temperature of each fire bowl and restart it if necessary, only 1 or 2 times. If it does not light with 2 or 3 attempts, send yourself a text message for manual intervention.

Separately, when they are turned off, you might program off of a change in temperature of each fire bowl and alert if the temperature indicates the bowl is on when it should not be on.

Good idea. However, I believe that issue with the fire bowl has been resolved yesterday so I shouldn't have to do anything - we will see though. I mainly wanted to see if I could use a repeating timer in that way and you guys answered that. 

Thanks again for your time.

[msgreenf]

You can't beat nests logic...

[Southerncentralrain]

46 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

You can't beat nests logic...

Agreed, but only if the user actually changes the thermostat when the temperature needs adjusting. We have zones that are occupied by users that don't/can't change the thermostat when needed and other zones that are intermittently used so we have run into some issues. I am hoping that I will be able to address this with my logic but we can always turn their auto mode back on if it doesn't work out. We will see...

[Chico]

Timers don’t put any stress in the system. They are simply markers. I have lots of timers constantly running in my system and never had any issues. 

[Neo1738]

On 5/1/2021 at 3:34 PM, Chico said:

Timers don’t put any stress in the system. They are simply markers. I have lots of timers constantly running in my system and never had any issues. 

Yes but if it expires every minutes and the system has 30 tasks to perform that could get taxing. Not to mention if a task doesn't finish in the next minute and it starts to go again get into endless loop, memory leak, etc.

[Cyknight]

't was already noted several times that a timer in and of itself isn't taxing, but the potential execution of programming (and the communication involved) on the timer can be.

 

I don't recommend having very many running simply because it's easy to lose track of what you all have, which can then make it easy to accidentally create conflict, loops and eventually that all WILL cause an issue.

 

Having 50 1 minute timers running to turn 50 different lights off IF on is no sweat.

Having just 2 i minute timers running and each toggling the same light on and off using a 30 second ramp will likely lead to your system screeching to a halt over time.