DOMOSAPIENS - NEW ADVANCED LIGHTING SELECTOR DRIVER

[pbir]

ANNOUNCING THE NEW DOMOSAPIENS ADVANCED LIGHTING SELECTOR DRIVER

This driver is used to dynamically select and activate/deactivate Advanced Lighting Scenes, based on simple or elaborate Control Logic you define in Properties.  When requested (triggered) by the user, Scene selection may be controlled by time of day as well as the state of several conditions: other lights or scenes, blinds, security partitions, contacts, day of week, ambient lighting, and programming variables.  This is intended to be very flexible and powerful, yet easy to specify.

In addition, with its extensive ALS Reports, this driver may be used to document all elements of Advanced Lighting Scenes in a Project (something that Composer does not yet provide), as well as produce a comprehensive Cross Reference list of Scenes, Lights and Rooms.

The driver can be found at Advanced Lighting Selector on Drivercentral

[South Africa C4 user]

Having had the privilege of Beta Testing this driver, I only have 2 comments:

1. It is incredibly complex but well worth taking the time to understand what this driver does.

2. It is extremely powerful and it is only by using the driver that you will really understand how powerful it is!

Well done Domosapiens.  This driver should become a must have in all new installs.  

My only irritation is realising how many (hundreds of) lines of coding I can get rid of via a couple of instances of this driver.

[RAV]

First, WOW.
I read the doc, and it's not just outside the box, it redefines the box.

A concern is that it's overly powerful, and many will not take the time to understand it and how to set it up.
I don't know what's all on the backend, but if it was reasonable, might I suggest also releasing a simplified version with just 2 scenes and an input of when day begins and ends.
Setup would then be select scene day, scene night, and day starts at, ends at, and make a connection to a toggle keypad button, done.
Give a taste of what the all powerful can do, with a reduced driver they can start with and understand.

It's amazing work, but I've been around long enough to know, that it's beyond many installers abilities to use in it's current form.
Not knocking it, but it's like handing some one a picnic table kit with holes and cuts all made and stickers labeling parts, or just a set of plans without a bill of materials and send them to the depot.

 

[Amr]

Well, any veteran C4 dealer will be able to figure it out, great addition!

[pbir]

@RAV Your suggestion makes sense to help dealers better understand  the driver which is indeed complex (because it can do so many things).  However adding a second pared down driver would make things more difficult to synchronize in the future. I have therefore decided to take your example and add a QUICK START section at the very beginning of the documentation.  Can't be missed!

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QUICK START – A SIMPLE EXAMPLE

Ask: the client wants to use one keypad button to activate/deactivate a Lighting Scene during the day and a different Lighting Scene at night.  The keypad button LED must show the state of the Scene.

Solution: 

⦁    Install the driver.  Do not modify any properties other than the ones outlined below.

⦁    In Agents/Advanced Lighting, create the Daytime and the Nighttime Lighting Scenes to turn on the required light(s) at the required level(s).  Also create the Default Toggle Scene for each.  As you have modified the Scenes setup, run the driver’s Action ‘Refresh Advanced Lighting Scenes’.

⦁    Use the properties Select Advanced Lighting Scene A to point to your Daytime Scene and Select Advanced Lighting Scene B to point to your Nighttime Scene.

⦁    Set the Control Logic When Activating/ON property to: d = A ; n = B   This means that the first program will activate Scene A during daytime (lowercase d) and the second program will activate Scene B during nighttime (lowercase n).

⦁    Connect the driver’s Toggle Button Link L to the desired keypad button.  You may modify the properties for Keypad LED Active/ON Color and Keypad LED Inactive/OFF Color if you wish.

You are done!  Now, read on…
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I hope this will be helpful and point dealers in the right direction.

Paul

P.S. to ALL: Do have a look at the driver's Action to '** Print ALS Reports', especially the Cross Reference report which was asked for in these forums just a few weeks ago.