Jon00 Device Grouping Utility (web page) for Homeseer 3 & Homeseer 4

[jon00]

A parent/root is like a container device for child/feature devices. So you would have a single root device plus one or more feature devices. For sake of clarity, a root/feature are the names used in HS4 and parent/child were used in HS3 devices.

A standalone device means it just sits alone and legacy status from HS3 days.

It is a bit confusing because HS4 also supports legacy HS3 devices which are used by older plugins. You can tell the difference by going to a device Status/Graphics tab and looking at the Advanced information (Device Version).



A HS4 device will be marked 4 and a HS3 device as 3.2

When you create a new HS4 device, it must be associated to a root device, so 2 devices are created; a root plus a feature. These are effectively grouped together. A root device cannot have controls.

With a HS3 device, no restrictions exist so you can have a standalone device with/without controls or have a parent and children both with/without controls.

The HS4 requirement to have both a Root/Feature is not popular with some users; especially for applications where a device is just used for status. To that end, they have copied/modified HS3 standalone devices which they had when they upgraded from HS3 to HS4.

To make life more flexible, I have created 2 utilities for creating HS3 and HS4 devices which gives you more control over this process:

For HS3 devices: https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/3r...reator-for-hs4

For HS4 devices: https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/3r...for-homeseer-4

[ocgltd]

I'm just reading up on this tool, and I see you added a feature to set relationships to parent/root, child/feature, standalone

Being new to this...could you explain the difference? I saw reference to a user manual so if that's already answered there then I'll just RTFM. I have to open a port in firewall...just not up to it tonight.

[Dave Haig]

Thanks Jon, will do!

[jon00]

So just fix it with this utility. Set the device with reference 219 to standalone.

[Dave Haig]

My first post about this was as follows...

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I got a warning I did not have before...

"Warning Device (219) Timing Lighting 03. Side Spot Light references a child device with a device ref of 46 but the device does not exist"

Whereas device 46 is an unrelated device that is working correctly.

So I tried to fix it with Fix Device/Feature Relationships and received 6 lines of this...

"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

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That happened when I went right from 4.2.17.2 to 4.2.18.1

It did not occur when went from 4.2.17.2 to 4.2.18.0

But that first error was the thing that got me thingking about relationships.

Something got out of whack between 4.2.18.0 and 4.2.18.1.

Guess I will sit back and wait for things to hopefully sort themselves out.

[jon00]

There is no history stored.

Looking at your other post, it would look more like a HS4 issue as something must of changed between versions.

Do you get any warnings in the Log regarding broken relationships when you first start HS4?

[Dave Haig]

I am wondering if there is an ini file or registry setting or some other place where I can see a list of the parent and child groups I created using the plugin. I am having some issues running the Fix Device/Feature Relationships feaure in the labs tab on the new beta 4.2.18.1. It runs fine in 4.2.18.0 but give me six errors in the log file when running it in 4.2.18.1.

Just trying to chase the issue down and I need to rule out the possibility of a bug in the beta that doesn't like groups created within the plugin. It would be interesting if I had used it to make 6 groups which might explain why I get 6 errors in my log file...

"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
"DEV-FEA FIX Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

I know its a long shot, but that's the only thing I have done with my system with regard to parent/chile relationships.

Here is a link to my post over at the beta section...

Click Here

Works perfectly, makes things much simpler and should help HSTouch users with the not so great naming convention... Thanks


In HS3


In HS4



In HStouch



Reassign to standalone


Success...



but again need to go through hoops and loops + Jon's support & patches
HS... please make this simpler, more user friendly or customizable... please.

[jon00]

Thank you Jon, much appreciated.
will test this week and report back,

How did the tests go?

Thank you Jon, much appreciated.
will test this week and report back,

[jon00]

Thx Jon,
no rush at all, just thought it would be nice to have everything related to device relationship management in a single tool.

Please try V1.0.6, now available from my site.

I've added a drop-down so you can not set a device or group of devices to any relationship you want:

Thx Jon,
no rush at all, just thought it would be nice to have everything related to device relationship management in a single tool.

[jon00]

I'm a bit busy ATM but let me take a look in a week or two.

Hi Jon, is it currently possible to assign the "Standalone" status to multiple devices at once via the plugin ?
In some specific cases, it is much better to keep/convert devices to "standalone" (ex: as a way to simplify the messy naming convention in HS4touch)

Worst case I have 2 workarounds (below) but it would be nice to do so via the plugin.

1: delete relationship status via the plugin and then use the "fix relationship" from setup/labs; this will convert any "not set" devices to "standalone"

2: use rge nice script from here: https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/de...onship-editing

Cheers,

[Wade]

Ok thanks Randy. The result is interesting though. The duplicate devices are separate from representations of the same device. I.e., if I modify any settings on either, the changes are reflected on the other as well. I'm sure the explanation is simple, but to me it's a bit of spooky interaction at a distance.