Announcing a new Enhanced Contdown Timer driver by Domosapiens, available on DriverCentral

[pbir]

A new, significantly Enhanced Countdown Timer driver, inspired by the original Control4 driver 

1. Countdown units may now be ‘Seconds’, ‘Hours’ or ‘Days’ in addition to ‘Minutes’.
2. A specific time of day may be specified for triggering when ‘Days’ are used.
3. A new optional UI facility is provided to cancel the countdown and/or cycle the times again while running.  
4. A new programming command and a keypad connection are available to Cancel countdown.
5. UI feedback is provided when the countdown actually starts.
6. A new 'Countdown Cancel' event is triggered when the countdown is cancelled (instead of the normal ‘Countdown Off’).
7. A new 'Countdown Start' event is available.
8. By default, countdowns are restarted automatically upon Director reboot or driver update.  This may be modified via a property.
9. A new MINUTES_LEFT variable is continuously updated during countdown.
10. A new output CONTACT_SENSOR is activated when the countdown is running.

The driver is controlled by an Experience Button and/or a keypad button and/or programming to select a delay and start the countdown.  Several events are triggered at the start, the end and during the countdown itself.  A relay and a Contact Sensor output are also activated while the countdown is going on.

The driver is available on DriverCentral at https://drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/enhanced-countdown-timer/

Special thanks to @South Africa C4 user for his patient testing and insightful suggestions.

Paul

[South Africa C4 user]

Having been running a beta version of this driver for the last couple of weeks, I can highly recommend the driver. It really does take the use of timers (with a visualisation element) to a new level.

The only negative for me is that I am scrapping (literally) 100s of lines of code and using a day timer version of this driver (actually 14 instances of this) to allow me to pre-plan things on the UI many days in advance. A couple of clicks and Control 4 knows to turn off my geyser and pool / jacuzzi heaters in 7 days time when I leave on holiday... a few more clicks and Control4 knows to turn them back on 10 days later in preparation for my return.

[msgreenf]

can you share some screenshot/pictures?

[South Africa C4 user]

This should give a feel for the visual aspect.  All of these are day timers which I have set to run for x days and to “clock over” at 9:30 am.  One has access to equivalent hour, minute and second timers.  The minute timer is quite similar to the standard Countdown experience button but has significant added functionality.  For instance, when the red cross shows - one can cancel a timer, when the up arrow shows, one can adjust the timer. These two options can be accessed by pressing the timer once (the experience button then cycles through available adjustment options before reverting to the outstanding days, hours, minutes or seconds in the current countdown sequence).  The green tick confirms that a timer change has been locked in.