Hi Guys,
This is a pseudo introduce myself, pseudo offer to anyone who is interested, and pseudo asking for help post.
Just found out about the forum and signed up. Been using Core and Webcore since I got my ST last year. Happy there is a dedicated space for us here! I love the tool and what it can do. I’ve managed to build some pretty complicated stuff that I am quite happy with. However in reading through those deprecated threads on the ST forums I’m still left with a few questions, and I’m hoping someone around here can help. I’ve read most of the threads I can find and I’ve read the wiki a ton of times. To give you an idea of my build first:
I am mostly using ST as home monitoring while I am away, door and light management to save energy and mental health, as well as two tablets for house controls. I do have a rachio sprinkler controller en-route and about half of the switches converted to Z-Wave. Long term I want to add some sirens (but don’t trust my pistons enough to not deafen myself, my dog, or wake my daughter up), as well as get some CT101’s once I can get the rest of this going nicely. I have half a dozen motion sensors, a dozen door sensors, door locks, gocontrol garage door controller, a half dozen plugs, and 1 light switch (more on the way).
I struggled massively with presence detection and eventually gave up on it. I now run most of my pistons on times, motion (or lack there of), or button or switch control. I’ve probably rebuilt my webcore half a dozen times so am getting fairly confident on it. I have a dozen or so simulated buttons and switches that control various things and are used as state indicators as well as a few global variables. I also use big-talker with LanAnnouncer to run my wall mounted tables. Also I publish a ton of this out to ActionTiles for monitoring at home and work. Also have some control built for when my wifi cameras get clogged up and need a re-boot and have them broadcast their streams to my actiontiles. There, that should about cover it. Now on to a couple things I’ve never figured out:
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I want is to have a piston subscribing to lets say 6 devices, each one puts up it’s hand when it closes, when all 6 close, it starts a timer, after the time I set (say 3 to 5 minutes) the piston restarts and goes OK no one is in that room / area of the house and executes. I just haven’t had that much luck with the ‘stay’ condition. Also I figured ‘contact did not change’ would look at the events log and see if there was a ‘motion’ or ‘contact’ event or whatever I specified after a certain amount of time. Based on my limited testing it doesn’t seem to do that, at least mine with some trial and error seems to be referencing the health state. The best I’ve ever done is a weird cascading piston or timer set which just doesn’t seem elegant.
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Im wondering if there is a description of what each function does. I’ve been using it for about a year and some of them I just don’t really understand what they might do different (or why they exist). I’m thinking is there a list that would do this:
Is (are): compares thing against the defined state, is true for as long as that thing is in the state. Will not trigger piston.
Is any of (are any of): compares the thing against multiple defined states.
Is not (are not): same as above but…
Is not any of (are not any of): xxxxxxx
Changed…
Did not change…
Hope this makes sense. I am surprised I’ve never seen it. Sometimes when building or trouble shooting a piston I just can’t tell if it is doing the correct thing. I.E. biggest for me is usually the ‘was’ state. I always get the ‘was’ open for 15 seconds confused with ‘stay’ in the last 15 seconds and sometimes have issues getting the piston to work properly. I’ve tried searching and have never found a true list. Any code engine comes with a manual that explains all the functions in it, I wonder if there is the same. The Wiki does explain the boolean and other logic but doesn’t explain what gates these commands are trying to mimic.