Repeated Announcement. Repeated Announcement.

[123]

PROBLEM: ELK M1 Rule insists on speaking an announcement twice.

Function Key F5 toggles my garage door. It has been working fine for a long time. I recently installed two speakers in the garage and now want to play a warning message prior to closing the garage door.

The attached diagram shows:

1. Task1 toggles the garage door.
2. Task1 is assigned to F5 (double-press required to activate the Task).
3. First rule executes WHENEVER Task1 is ACTIVATED and GarageDoor is NOT SECURE. It speaks a warning message and starts a 10 second timer (on Output 207).
4. Second rule executes WHENEVER Output 207 is OFF and GarageDoor is NOT SECURE. A relay is closed for 1 second (which triggers the garage door opener).

Everything works fine except for the announcement which is spoken twice instead of the expected once. There are no other rules that speak this special message. I've tried re-ordering the THEN statements (i.e. speak first, activate output last) and speaking stock voice messages but the result is the same: the message is always spoken twice.




What the heck is causing the M1 to speak the message twice?


FWIW, this is firmware 4.4.12. Is this problem due to a bug that is corrected in a later firmware version?

 

[chrisexv6]

Have you tried setting it to F5 and NOT requiring a double press (I thought there is a way to do that)

I wonder if the double press is being seen as a double activation even though it should only be a single activation

 

[123]

Have you tried setting it to F5 and NOT requiring a double press ...

I set it to single-press and it does not eliminate the problem. It was worth a try; thanks for the suggestion.

 

[apostolakisl]

I would start by trying to isolate the problem by getting rid of other things one at a time until/if the problem goes away.

Try getting rid of the "and" part of the rule
Make your then a simple single event like a zone becoming non-secure.
Try getting rid of the 10 second delay
Try getting rid of all these things at the same time

If it still does it as a simple program like:

whenever
zone x becomes not secure
then
announce. . .

Then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[123]

Lou,

Your suggestion to "get rid of other things one at a time until/if the problem goes away" made me say "done that". I have several other simpler rules that speak announcements and they do not repeat the message.

I reviewed my list of rules and selected a few examples that I planned to show you as proof that announcements speak once except for this ornery Task. While reviewing the list I tripped over this dusty old rule, a leftover from some long-forgotten test:

WHENEVER F5 KEY ON ANY KEYPAD BECOMES DISARMED
THEN ACTIVATE ToggleGarageDoor (Task1)

Doh! <slap forehead/> That rule, plus the one I recently created, effectively ran Task1 twice and the M1 dutifully spoke the announcement twice. My big fat mistake! I disabled the rule, pressed F5 to close the garage door, and the announcement spoke once: "Alert! Garage Door Will B Closed in Ten Second".

Thanks, Lou, for inadvertently forcing me to carefully review my rules!