Persistent (across reboots) data for Control4

[MHotchin]

I've just started playing with dimmers, and one of the things I am programming is 'Vacation Mode'. I can easily set up a button or whatever to toggle a variable in and out of Vacation Mode (then base lighting decisions on that), but is there any way to *persist* the value across reboots?

If I'm on vacation and the power goes out, I want my house to be in Vacation Mode when the power comes back on. A UPS helps, but there's always a power outage longer than your UPS runtime, no matter how big the UPS.

A sleazy way I guess is just to *program* the value of Vacation mode directly, say in the Project Load sequence. Not very friendly, though.

[EagleMoon]

Are you saying you've tested it and the variable value is NOT retained across reboots? That would seem like a design flaw by Control4.

[neil12011]

yes there is a program option for "when project loads" that will do exactly what you are asking.

[akg4y]

Im not sure if this is related or not, but I have one button on a six button keypad that has different initial LED colors from everything else in the house. For example the majority of my keypads are blue when off and green when on if they are bound to a light. This one button on a six button keypad is black when off and blue when on. I changed the properties so that it mimics the other keypad buttons but whenever my HC-1000 is rebooted or there is a long power failure etc it reverts to the old lighting system of black off and blue on. Is that something I can change, and why on earth would that happen?

[EagleMoon]

There are two places I found where you can affect the colors: 1) the Properties tab when the 6-button Keypad is selected in the project tree, and 2) double-clicking the keypad icon when the List tab is selected.

I don't exactly understand the difference but I think #1 is the power-on default and #2 is something else - I don't know what, but you can change the color there. #2 also lets you activate the button function with a mouse click.

Which did you use when changing the color? And can someone explain the purpose of setting the color in #2?

[MHotchin]

yes there is a program option for "when project loads" that will do exactly what you are asking.

Not exactly - of course programming is persistent, but that's not the same as data. To do as you suggest requires me to re-program (albeit in a minor fashion) when I want to switch in and out of Vacation Mode. This is not something my wife is going to want to do.

So, I program a (for example) a button to switch a variable to Vacation Mode - how do I make sure I can retrieve that value upon reboot?

[CFUG]

The only thing I can suggest to you is to pre-program a schedule related to the vacation time block. Run all schedules when the project boots. I don't believe there is a way to save a variable state prior to a crash. This is not some lab-grade DACC system we are using here...

[akg4y]

There are two places I found where you can affect the colors: 1) the Properties tab when the 6-button Keypad is selected in the project tree, and 2) double-clicking the keypad icon when the List tab is selected.

I don't exactly understand the difference but I think #1 is the power-on default and #2 is something else - I don't know what, but you can change the color there. #2 also lets you activate the button function with a mouse click.

Which did you use when changing the color? And can someone explain the purpose of setting the color in #2?

I used the method you have as #1, I will check #2 and see if the colors are the same there. So far I have noticed 3 keypads with funky behavior. The first is the 6 button with the one button that defaults to off-black/on-blue when the HC-1000 is rebooted. The second is a 3 button in which *all 3* buttons default to off-black/on-blue, and the third is a dimmer with the default being orange instead of the blue/green I have everywhere else.

Edit: Also, didnt mean to thread-jack, I just thought the persistent data thing over reboots may be related but it sounds like it isnt.