I am in need of a piston that when open close sensors open will set off an alarm and make all the lights in the house flash. Can You help?
Need Flashing Light Piston
WCmore
#2
You could do something like this:
I believe the WITH command can have up to 16 lights per command…
I will be honest though… I am not sure how reliable your network / ST hub will be sending 960 commands per minute. If it were me, I would be tempted to pick one dominant light in each room to flash to cut down on network traffic. Also slowing down the flashing would help in that regards as well. The more commands that SmartThings is trying to send at once, the more likelihood that some will not make it thru.
trirocketman
#3
Thanks. I may give that a try. I have not made a piston that actually worked. I am usually the go to guy when someone has tech problems but this eludes me.
WCmore
#4
The best advice I can give for newbies to webCoRE, is to start simple… test the piston (by faking the time or conditions etc)… and when you are happy with the piston, build upon that. I used to write all my code before testing, and it is much harder to pin down the issues that way.
So, for example, in this case, only flash ONE light ONE time during testing. You can always ‘complexify’ it later, LOL
eibyer
#5
Also make sure you have a way of overriding any alarms as ST is known to have hiccups once in a while. You don’t want to be stuck in an event where you have an alarm blasting and lights flashing on a false alarm with no control if your devices.
Sparq-e
#7
I’ve bee trying to create a similar piston for use with my garage door (i.e. if I trigger garage door to open/close via SmartThings the lights in the garage should flash to warn anyone in the garage). I think I’ve kept the piston fairly simple but for some reason the lights only flash once (I have it set up as your example above with 1 sec intervals and for it to flash 3 times).
Are 1 sec intervals just too quick?
Sparq-e
#8
Reading up on some other threads it’s most likely due to the fact that the lights I’m trying to flash are controlled by an in-wall switch (GE on/off) which is probably too slow to cope with the 1 sec intervals. Turns out it’s also a bad idea to flash switches since it can prematurely ruin the internals…
Looks like I’ll have to put a dedicated smart bulb in the mix for my purposes.
WCmore
#9
Normally, I would say a couple of bulbs could handle this smoothly. (the less bulbs the better)
I usually program flashing commands to be sent to a SmartBulb that is connected to a dumb switch.
What is the precise trigger in your piston? Certain events are only true for a moment.
You could test if your code is working by reducing the flashing to 3 second intervals.
Sparq-e
#10
DoubleGarage is a virtual switch (created with ST app) which is the trigger for the piston.
Garage Light is the GE in-wall switch.
Double Garage Door is a smart plug which I’m using to “pulse” a relay that triggers the door to open/close.
I just changed to 3 second intervals and can confirm it all works now - albeit with a less dramatic effect 
I may just keep it like this…and educate the kids and wife that if the lights in the garage start flashing on and off to get away from the doors 
Thanks again for helping me trouble-shoot!
WCmore
#11
Now that you know 3 seconds work, I would be tempted to test 2 seconds next… 
But then again, I am typically known for pushing the boundaries, LOL
Sparq-e
#12
From my piston snapshot you can see I was making my way there (but from the other side…i.e. trying 1800 ms) 
I think for my use-case I would rather be safe than sorry…I wouldn’t want network issues/speed to be the reason why anyone wouldn’t witness the flashing and be in the way of the doors. This trigger will only really be used in pretty limited situations when I need to open/close garage when not in the car…
Thanks again!!
WCmore
#13
I agree with you. I will choose reliability over speed any day of the week…
By the way, welcome to the forum!
Gopack2
#14
Just to throw my 2 cents in here. I know you are trying to use lights to do this. However, I have a go control (actually iris brand but made by linear go control) it is designed that when Door is going to open or close it flashes a light downward towards floor and has an audible alarm beeping for approx. 5 seconds as a warning the door is going to move. Just does it, no special work around.
The other option you could use, if the work around is the desired method. Maybe rgb lightbulbs that turn red when Door is going to move and normal desired color the rest of the time?
Like I said just my 2 cents
Good luck
Gopack2
ependergrass
#15
If I am hoping for some pulsating effect, faster flashing than every 3 seconds, etc am I pretty out of luck with my Sylvania warm white smart LED bulbs? I have some spots where they are more nice to have than a super useful necessity… but at $2.50/ea with a 2 year warranty, curious what fun things I can do with them
I have not had any luck finding custom device type handlers or anything. But is there any hope for some sort of local zigbee control of these triggered by webcore or smartthings? Or has anyone come up with any other solutions? I can’t even get a decent flash going with 3 seconds on/3 seconds off… and I’ve got clean and clear wifi and symmetrical gigabit fiber internet.
ependergrass
#17
Price has gone back up a bit, but still a good deal: https://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-Smart-Home-74768-SmartThings/dp/B07576J38L/?tag=slickdeals&ascsubtag=ee1a68c2623d11e985c93e364c14c4010INT&th=1
ependergrass
#19
Wow… just got mine, and it turns out they sent an entire extra box… 8 bulbs for $12.
Should I be concerned these are all uhh… Chinese spy wifi bulbs or something? 
But seriously has anyone had any luck with getting flashing/other light commands to work more quickly, as a part of a series of actions (like a pulse mode or something?) I swear I read of success with custom device type handlers for this sort of stuff at some point.
Has noone done it with these bulbs?