On button to control closest lights

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
Not so much a problem but question.

2) What is the expected behaviour?
Use one button to control many lights but only the ones it’s closest to. Example take button near kitchen light and it controls it. Take need bedroom light and controls that instead. I would think this is possible to a degree as the button hops the other Zigbee devices.

3) What is happening/not happening?
Have no piston to try.

4) Post a Green Snapshot of the pistonimage

5) Attach logs after turning logging level to Full
Have no logs

#2

If a zwave button works like bluetooth that I’m not aware, then maybe possible.
But i can tell you for sure, you can’t do that with a piston…

If you have multiple PRESS options on the button:
ei:
key 1 - pushed, held, double clicked
key 2 - pushed, held, double clicked
etc

then you can use a piston to control different lights (rooms)

#3

I cant think of a way to do this reliably. You could have a motion sensor in each lights location, and record the location of the last movement. Then when you press the button, the piston turns the light on in that location.

#4

A Zigbee button may connect to the ST hub directly, or to a router (also known commonly as a repeater). It will not change the router it uses unless it needs to. So moving about doesn’t necessarily change anything. Even if it did, a router in another room might be used in preference to one in the same room. So the underlying concept doesn’t work.

In any case, you don’t have access to this information at the webCoRE piston level.

#5

That’s actually a very interesting approach… But i know what you mean by unreliable.

#6

I agree with everyone here… Buttons are so inexpensive these days, the most reliable approach is to simply buy an extra button for the other room.

#7

I’ve often thought how useful it would be to know where people were in the house. I read recently that someone (maybe it was netgear) were working on a system that could identify if a room was occupied by analysing the wifi signals via AI. If this worked and the data was available to webcore it opens up all sorts of possibilities. We currently use the ST presence sensors in the cars to determine who is home, but its not ideal, particularly if a car is in for a service overnight.

#8

This technology already exists as Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons.

You hide them around your house, and they can detect connected devices within a certain range. (the acceptable range is usually editable) If you place multiple Beacons in the same room, your location can be as accurate as 6 feet.

Of course, this only works if you bring your phone with you wherever you go in your house.
(although they do make keychain Beacons, so they could be attached to your belt buckle or dog’s collar)

#9

That sounds interesting, would they be able to detect the bluetooth on a smart watch/activity tracker e.g bluetooth?
The one I was reading about didn’t require you to carry the phone. It worked by analysing the disturbance in the wifi signals when people moved around the house.

#10

I believe they can detect any Bluetooth signal that you have paired.

(Sorry for the Star Wars reference… LOL)

I am intrigued, but this sounds like it is verging on Sci-Fi…

Without multiple devices scattered around the house, the best I can see with this is approximate distance from the device. (not which room)

#11

maybe i’m missing something my appoligies. I’m in my office right now and Action Tiles is open on one my screens and i can easily see when someone goes to the bathroom by motion sensors getting triggered.

#12

Agree, it does sound very sci-fi, here’s an article about it

#13

Thanks for the link. This setup consists of at least two hubs, so is now believable to me (due to triangulation).

It will sure open up a lot of possibilities for us, that’s for sure…

#14

Awesome thanks for the info. I guess if the piston doesn’t have access to the next hop information then it won’t really work the way I was wanting. Only real reason for wanting was to say have a button on my keychain and could jut touch it to the light to turn off. Not a big deal really. Was just being super lazy!

#15

Well, if your phone can respond to NFC stickers, you can scatter them around your house (they are tiny & cost about 50 cents). This way, you can touch your phone to any of them for a unique URL… (which can trigger a piston)

For example, I have one in my car’s cup holder. When I insert my phone into the cup holder, it changes my phones volume, connects to my car’s Bluetooth (for music), and executes a URL that triggers a specific piston.

I have another NFC sticker on my nightstand that does something different when I place my phone near the sticker before bed.

There’s many apps to choose from, but here is a short 90 sec video showing the NFC programming and response using Android & Tasker.

In the video, he uses “Browse URL”, but to trigger a piston, I recommend using “HTTP GET” and pointing it directly to the piston’s External URL. This way, the piston is silently triggered, without actually opening a webpage.

#16

That’s a amazing idea. I am already quite used to nfc and rfid. I didn’t realize a piston could be triggered from URL. That information alone just opened so many doors for me. Thank you

#17

Here’s a step-by-step guide listing a few examples, and some bonus tips…