UPB Link Question

[tshephard]

I just got a HAI House Controller I'm going to use in a table top housing.

What I want to do is program a button on the controller to turn on all the outside lights, then when you turn off the button, put the lights back to where they were. The controller light must track whats going on.

I thought this would be easy, but I'm not getting the results I want. I'm using HAI switches.

I made a link called Outside Lights and programmed all the outside switches to receive it at 100%. I don't see a way to make a second link trigger from the 'off toggle' of the controller. I tried programming a second outside link programmed for 'Last Level' and set that to a second button.

Lets say my front porch light is at 50%. Then I press the Outside Lights (Link) button and all the lights come up to 100%.
Then I press the Last Level button and nothing happens. When I press the Outside Lights (Link) button again, it deactivates the link and all the lights go out, as they should.

Another issue is that the HAI controller light comes on when activated, I need it to turn off w/o deactivating the link which will turn the outside lights off.

I thought this would be easy using only UPB links. I can do it via Homeseer if necessary. But I think I'll end up having to use twice as many links that way.

 

[tmbrown97]

The Last Level is for turning the lights on; it won't work for a light that's on to return to a previous state.

Because you have HomeSeer, you can store the status of each of the lights so you have a reference to set it back to. I don't see why that'd be twice as many links... you'd use one for full on, and one for last level; you wouldn't even program those links into the individual switches; instead you'd have HomeSeer respond to the events and control the lights...

 

[Desert_AIP]

If you have lights at 50%, then set them to 100%, then send a "Last Level" command, the last level IS 100%, so you won't see any apparent change, even though there is UPB traffic telling the lights to go to their last on level.

If you want to use a second link it should be a "Porch lights to 50%" link vice last level.

How are the lights getting to 50% in the first place?

Is the scnario that you have just the porch lights on at 50%, then you want to turn on additional lights and ramp the porch up to 100%, then turn off all the additional lights and drop the porch back to 50%?

Also, I'm not undestanding what you want the LED on the UPB controller to do.
Do you want it to track the status of the link or the porch lights?

The controller light must track whats going on.
<...>
Another issue is that the HAI controller light comes on when activated, I need it to turn off w/o deactivating the link which will turn the outside lights off.

 

[tshephard]

Thanks for all the input.

At most of the time at night, the porch light is dimmed to 30%. If there is motion at the porch or the front door opens, it ramps to 100%. The backyard light may be on if the dog is out, or it might be off. It's set to turn off 30 minutes after the last time the backdoor was closed. The side house light only stays on while taking the trash out. Turns off 3 minutes after the door closes. The driveway floods turn on with the motion, or the garage door. They stay on for 5 minutes, unless the garage door is still open and its dark.

So you can see there are a lot of variables to track. The goal with the controller is to have one button that turns on all the outside lights like if we hear a noise or something. The indicator should light up on the controller showing it was activated. If we press the button a second time, the outside lights should go back to their previous status. (which I was hoping last level would do). There status could be any number of conditions as noted. The controller indicator should go out in response to the button push showing the command was executed.

I was hoping to do it with links. Even programing it in HomeSeer seems like a pretty difficult task. I guess I could just send one link set to 100% on all outside lights, then another with all outside lights set to 0% and the front porch set to 30%. Then I don't think the controller can send two different links on the same button, and the indicator needs to properly track. As soon as I would send a deactivate outside lights link to get the controller indicator off, all the outside lights would go off.

Please enlighten me! :blink:

 

[Desert_AIP]

I do pretty much the same thing.

You can do this with two separate links.
You'll need to make sure all possible lights that may come on either act independently of the two llinks or are included in both. Otherwise you will have sync issues.

Decide what you want everything to look like outside under normal conditions.
Porch light 30%, Security Perimeter lights OFF, etc. Make a link for that condition.
I call this "Dusk". The porch and driveway lights come on at dusk and go off at dawn. This is important to the reset.

Decide what you want everything to look like when you activate the emeregency link.
Porch to 100%, Security Perimeter lights 100%, etc. Make a link for that condition.
I call this "Exterior Security".

Use two separate buttons on your controller. Make the both Activate only buttons.
Button 1 - Security
Button 2 - Normal
You can label those on the switch what ever you want (Security On/Off, or whatever).

Pressing button 1 Activates the Security link, pressing button 2 Activates the Normal link (essentially resetting everything).

You can use the WHEN DARK condition (or whatever the similar one is in your controller of software) to ensure the lights don't come back on durig the day.

Anything more complicated then that, toggling a single link and storing and returning to a previous setting is going to require a software solution.

 

[tenholde]

I have 2 scripts I'd be glad to share. 1 takes a link name as a parameter and saves the status of all devices targeted by that link. The 2nd restores the devices status.

 

[tshephard]

Thanks guys. I'd like to see your script tenholde.

The only problem I see with making two buttons control the emergency and normal lights is that the lamp indicator on the house controller will need to follow the action. In this case it should light up for a moment and then back off since its a momentary function. I'm not sure if it will do that. Having to tap on it's "Do Nothing" just to get the light off would not be good.

 

[Desert_AIP]

The more complicated you want to make it the more you need a controller or software.

You should be able to set up the button as Activate Only in UPStart.
It isn't a toggle, every press sends an Activate.

You probably need a controller to send an "Indicate" command to get the LED to track properly.
Since you'd only want one LED on.
When the lights first came ON, you'd send a Normal indicate ON, when you pressed the Security ON, you'd send a Security Indicate ON and Normal OFF, and vice versa when you pressed Normal ON.

You may be able to get the LED to track based on the status of one of the lights...say the porch lights, 30% = Normal ON, 100% = Security ON.

You need to play with UPStart to tweak it.

 

[tshephard]

Thanks for the input. The HAI House controller lights turn on or off with link activate and deactivate.

After playing around with UpStart, it looks like the only real way to do this will be to have controller links not associated with the switches. Then HomeSeer would react to the controller UPB link, act on it by sending the Outside Lights UPB link, then send the deactivate link for the controller to turn the indicator lamp back off.

Actually I would have the controller link activate (indicator turns on) and HomeSeer reacts and turns on the outside light link. Then when the button is press again, HomeSeer reacts by deactivating the outside light link. The controller indicator would track automatically. Or I can have the lights return to normal after 5 minutes or so, then HomeSeer would send the controller deactivate link to turn the controller indicator off.

This still puts the original complication of actually returning the lights to their previous state. Would be nice if UPB had that built in.

 

[tshephard]

Here is what I ended up doing. It was mostly from the ideas here. Thank you.

I made one outside light link and another outside emergency link. I also made a link for the HAI 38A00-2 House Status Switch.

The status switch is set for a toggle. The nature of the switch is when the switch link is active the indicator lamp is on, and off when deactivated.

The Outside Lights Link is set to each outside switch UPB receive to be 0% except the porch light is set to 30%.

The Outside Emergency Light link sets all outside lights to 100%.

The operation is when the Status Switch is pressed, it sends an active link that HomeSeer looks for and responds with this:

Outside Emergency Link Activate
Outside Light Link Activate - Delay 5 minutes (turns lights back to normal after 5 minutes)
House Status Switch Deactivate - Delay 5 minutes (turns the indicator back off on the status switch showing the status of the emergency mode)

If the Status Switch is press again when the indicator is on, it sends a deactivate. HomeSeer responds with Outside Light Link Activate

Thats pretty much it. There is some small house cleaning by removing delayed actions, but this seems to work for the most part. I need to wait until after 10 PM to see if my "Turn porch light off after 10pm" will turn the porch light back off if the Emergency lighting is used during the night.