Messages

1

Vera Home Automation Controller / Re: Triggering VC command with a vera scene

« on: January 19, 2015, 04:34:25 PM »

Ah, I see. Great explanation, thanks.
What I love about this stuff is how there's usually more than one way of achieving what you're trying to do..

2

Vera Home Automation Controller / Triggering VC command with a vera scene

« on: January 19, 2015, 12:29:21 PM »

Hi All,

 Previously I had a motion sensor triggered 'coming home' vc command that did the following; (with an 'away' variable taking care of the logic)

-turn on tv
-turn on hue lights
-tts greeting/time/you have x new emails
-launch xbmc party mode

I've moved the tv and lights actions to the vera so I now have a motion sensor triggered vera 'coming home' scene. I simplified the vc command so once the vera scene is launched, the vc command does the following;

-tts greeting/time/you have x new emails
-launch xbmc party mode

This works fine, but at random times the vc command is triggered when the vera scene has not been launched.
I used vera1.scene1.active as the vc trigger. I'm just a bit unclear as to how vc vera polling works and how you should trigger a command using a vera scene.

Any advise welcome, thanks..

3

Integration Ideas / Re: Roomba integration

« on: November 29, 2014, 08:22:36 AM »

FYI - I was able to create a Vera scene with a luup code that calls the unit, then just a simple vc command to call the scene. Working great...

4

Integration Ideas / Re: Roomba integration

« on: November 26, 2014, 12:21:27 PM »

Yes its not cheap. It was a bored in work on a Friday afternoon purchase as I remember. The other advantage I suppose is that you dont have to leave your roomba looking a bit weird with no faceplate ..

5

Integration Ideas / Re: Roomba integration

« on: November 24, 2014, 01:15:49 PM »

Awesome 

6

Integration Ideas / Roomba integration

« on: November 24, 2014, 11:38:11 AM »

Hi, the robots thread was quite old I thought i'd better start a new one..

So, a while back I ordered one of these http://www.thinkingcleaner.com/
Many months later, its finally on its way..

I'm probably my own on this one I understand, but if anyone could even have a quick look at the api info below just to give me a sense of how much or how little would be involved in getting vc to talk to it (even in a very basic way i.e. clean, stop etc.) i'd much appreciate it..

http://www.thinkingcleaner.com/downloads/TC_API.pdf

By the way, are there any other roomba owners here?

Thanks

7

Kodi (XBMC) Frodo / Gotham / Isengard / Jarvis / Re: TTS & XBMC

« on: November 24, 2014, 11:11:41 AM »

Hmmm... neither of those actually worked for me for some reason. I'll have another look later.

8

Kodi (XBMC) Frodo / Gotham / Isengard / Jarvis / Re: TTS & XBMC

« on: November 21, 2014, 03:02:51 PM »

Ah gotcha, very cool. Incidentally, does your slideshow command work? I've struggled making this work. I've tried it as you have it and i get an 'unknown base action' error. I've taken out 'recursive', no error but it just doesn't do anything..

Thanks

9

Kodi (XBMC) Frodo / Gotham / Isengard / Jarvis / Re: TTS & XBMC

« on: November 21, 2014, 11:25:13 AM »

Hi,

What exactly do the 'Latest Movies' / 'Latest Albums' commands do?

10

Vera Home Automation Controller / Sharing 'workload' between vera and vc

« on: November 13, 2014, 12:38:27 PM »

Just a general query..

 With the vera now up and running, it occurred to me that there's various ways of splitting the workload between vc and vera. For example, my current 'coming home' scene:
- motion sensor tripped
- vc sees motion sensor event, turns on tv, turns on hue lights, issues tts greeting, plays random music

With the vera in place, this could of course be:
- motion sensor tripped
- vera scene turns on tv, lights (vera hue app)
- vc sees vera scene event, issues greeting, plays random music

The advantage of the 2nd obviously being that the pc does not need to be running for most of the scene to be launched. Going this way would also give me remote control of the usbuirt.

I'm sure there's no right or wrong way but i'm curious as to peoples approach and reasons for doing so...

11

Integration Ideas / Re: Controlling a model train.

« on: November 10, 2014, 11:20:40 AM »

Ha! no way, ive been trying to come up with a way to vc a christmas tree train! all the cheapo ones i've seen are battery operated and therefore no use. I came to the conclusion that the only way would be to buy some proper train kit, but its not cheap..

12

Vera Home Automation Controller / Re: Veralite & aeon multisensor

« on: October 30, 2014, 01:07:31 PM »

Excellent. A long evening of tinkering await. Thanks

13

Vera Home Automation Controller / Re: Veralite & aeon multisensor

« on: October 30, 2014, 09:22:14 AM »

Happy to report that downgrading to UI5 did the trick. Didn't get a chance to create any commands around it yet but motion sensor being tripped is now appearing in the vc history window. Excellent

FYI - It was UI7 i was on, so while it is kinda pretty i can confirm it has issues.

While i'm here James, what logic do you use in your 'coming home' scene so that once triggered, another sensor event doesn't call it again and switch off anything that uses a 'toggle' type action? (i'm thinking of the usbuirt which uses the same command for tv on and off)
I imagine there's numerous ways of doing it, i obviously need to have a play you might point me in the right direction..

Thanks guys

14

Vera Home Automation Controller / Re: Veralite & aeon multisensor

« on: October 29, 2014, 01:05:11 PM »

The sensor in question is this one http://www.amazon.com/Aeon-Labs-Aeotec-Z-Wave-Multi-Sensor/dp/B008D5TYGU

I believe i was prompted to update the firmware when I first connected to the controller so im guessing im on UI6.

The vera scene was really just to prove the sensor was working at all, i definitely want to call vc commands; tts, turn on tv etc. (ala 'coming home scenario')

I'll have another play this evening and report back.

*just occurred to me - I changed the firmware on the sensor to the EU version to get temperature in Celsius. Don't suppose this would have any impact?

15

Vera Home Automation Controller / Veralite & aeon multisensor

« on: October 29, 2014, 08:40:16 AM »

Hi All,

 I was lucky enough to get a good deal on some zwave gear (vera lite, 2 x dimmable wall sockets, thermostat/reciever and an aeon multisensor). I've been experimenting with the vc plugin and it all seems very intuitive so far, i had a desklamp toggle command up and running within a few minutes.

 I'm looking now at incorporating the sensor, most likely to launch a scene on entering a room. I've watched the 'getting started with vera' video, it all makes perfect sense but i'm having one issue.   When i 'trigger' the sensor i.e. wave my hand over it, the event is not appearing in the vc history window.
 Generate events is ticked in the plugin and other events do appear e.g. when i toggle the light on/off. The sensor is in the vc device xml and vc can get the temperature/humidity from it so all looks ok from that point of view, it seems to be specific to the motion detection part. Also I was able to get the motion sensor to turn on the light on the zwave wall socket via the vera backend so i dont believe there is anything wrong with the sensor.

 Hopefully i'm missing something simple, any help most welcome.