Mixing HLC with HA Software Control

[broconne]

I am starting to feel somewhat limited with HLC.
For example, I have a light in my mudroom closet and I have a light in my mudroom. I have an HLC room devoted to closets, so that I can set the All On/All Off. The Mudroom closet light is in the same "room" as all the other closets. I have my mudroom light in the same room as all my garage lights because opening the door from the mudroom to the garage will turn on both sets of lights. However, I now want to turn on the mudroom light when I open the mudroom closet door, but only if its dark.

I have a few options, I could move the mudroom closet door into the "mudroom/garage" room. I would have to live with the fact that in an "all on" situation my closet light would be on. I suppose in the middle of a house fire, I would have other high priority concerns....
I could also do individual light on commands, but that seems to take long time.

However, I was wondering if people have been able to use HLC - with status tracking while doing some more advanced lighting with software packages such as Elve or CQC?
(1) Is there problem with multiple UPB controllers on the network? Do you end up with lots of failures because of polling cross talk?
(2) How do you keep status in sync across HAI and a software controller?


Anyone have examples of doing this?

 

[Desert_AIP]

You can issue UPB commands to HLC units just like you would non-HLC units.
The free links can be used any way you want and the unit commands will turn individual loads on.

You can also modify the behavior of the default A, B, C, D links to do what you want.

 

[tmbrown97]

You can have multiple UPB controllers. I run one for the Elk, one for Elve, and one for the RUC - and I have a good sized network - over 60 devices. Elve lets you configure how chatty it is to avoid overcrowding the network.

I don't know much about how HAI talks to UPB - but any reason you can't boil this down to something more basic?

In my M1, I could very easily do:
WHENEVER Mudroom Closet Becomes Not Secure AND It is Dark Outside, THEN Turn on Mudroom Light

Can't the HAI do something like that? Just watch something happen on the UPB, and issue a totally unrelated other UPB command?

 

[broconne]

You can issue UPB commands to HLC units just like you would non-HLC units.
The free links can be used any way you want and the unit commands will turn individual loads on.

You can also modify the behavior of the default A, B, C, D links to do what you want.

Thanks Desert -
I think I am correct though, that i can't modify the A,B,C,D to cross HLC rooms and still get status updated, correct?

 

[broconne]

View attachment 4426

You can have multiple UPB controllers. I run one for the Elk, one for Elve, and one for the RUC - and I have a good sized network - over 60 devices. Elve lets you configure how chatty it is to avoid overcrowding the network.

I don't know much about how HAI talks to UPB - but any reason you can't boil this down to something more basic?

In my M1, I could very easily do:
WHENEVER Mudroom Closet Becomes Not Secure AND It is Dark Outside, THEN Turn on Mudroom Light

Can't the HAI do something like that? Just watch something happen on the UPB, and issue a totally unrelated other UPB command?

The problem is that I already have a block of code that says

68. WHEN Mudroom Closet NOT READY
   THEN Mudroom Closet Light ON FOR 10 MINUTES

When I add this second block of code:

69. WHEN Mudroom Closet NOT READY
  AND IF DARK
  AND IF Mudroom OFF
   THEN Mudroom ON FOR 10 MINUTES

There is about a 5 second delay because the Omni won't send that second UPB command until it is finished polling the first room for status. I think the core of some of my issues is that HAI doesn't implement the protocol w/ a priority queue were status requests only get executed if there is nothing else to be sent.

How are you keeping status in sync across your elk and elve?

 

[Desert_AIP]

Thanks Desert -
I think I am correct though, that i can't modify the A,B,C,D to cross HLC rooms and still get status updated, correct?

If you do a direct command from the HAI, status updates normally.



You can always mod things in UpStart.

For instance my external lights are one room all their own.
Link A is my "Dusk" scene.
In addition to the lights on the exterior, I have the under cabinet lights in the kitchen turn on.
I simply set the under cabinet lights to respond to the link in UpStart.
I have a bit of code to keep the status updated.

 

[tmbrown97]

The problem is that I already have a block of code that says

68. WHEN Mudroom Closet NOT READY
THEN Mudroom Closet Light ON FOR 10 MINUTES

When I add this second block of code:

69. WHEN Mudroom Closet NOT READY
AND IF DARK
AND IF Mudroom OFF
THEN Mudroom ON FOR 10 MINUTES

There is about a 5 second delay because the Omni won't send that second UPB command until it is finished polling the first room for status. I think the core of some of my issues is that HAI doesn't implement the protocol w/ a priority queue were status requests only get executed if there is nothing else to be sent.

How are you keeping status in sync across your elk and elve?

Wow - OK good to know. The Elk admittedly just doesn't keep accurate status - no matter what you do. It tracks direct activations all day long, but the second a scene comes into play, it's out of whack and never recovers. That said, a similar such rule would activate within about half a second.

Elve has its own engine that does its best to learn the links and poll all devices fairly frequently, so it stays pretty accurate. That said, I'm not using any Elve screens except when screwing around right now, so I'm not watching it day by day to see just how fast it refreshes. I know the poll frequency is adjustable.

 

[Desert_AIP]

broconne,

What happens if you swap positions of block 68 and 69?

Or restructure like this, assuming you always want the closet light on:



68. WHEN Mudroom Closet NOT READY
AND IF DARK
AND IF Mudroom OFF
THEN Mudroom Closet Light ON FOR 10 MINUTES
THEN Mudroom ON FOR 10 MINUTES

69. WHEN Mudroom Closet NOT READY
THEN Mudroom Closet Light ON FOR 10 MINUTES



69 will always execute.
But If 68 executes, when 69 executes the light will already be on, so no action will appear to occur and the delay should not happen.