Device Status Tracking Strategy?

[bpm32]

It will probably sound like the typical scene would do this for me, but I'm looking for something with better logic.

A brief example:

light 1 is full on
light 2 is 50% on
music is playing in one room
tv is on in another room

An interruption occurs... let's say the phone rings, I'm home alone, and I go to my office. Because I answered the phone, the music does currently stop and the tv does mute, thanks to some bandaged event logic that I really don't like. If I'm out of the tv room for a period of time, the lights will go out. When I hang up the phone, I've got it so the music will restart and the tv will revert back to normal... 'most' of the time.

What I'm looking for is a way to have HS take a snapshot of the status of a group of devices and have HS revert those devices to that snapshot when called upon.

I know, I know... it's called a scene! But, if the device's states have been altered from the scene (maybe because we needed brighter or dimmer light, no music versus differing playlists, etc), I want HS to be smart enough to return to its previous state, no matter the device's status.

This is probably as clear as mud, but it makes sense to me!

Is there a "slick" way of doing this, or is it a lost cause?

Thanks for listening.

Brian

[sonypoolplr]

Might not be the answer you are looking for, and I am sure that others might have a better way to do this, but what I currently do is set variables to the values, or states, of devices that I want to track if things change, like the phone rings. For example, I have a variable for the living room amp current input setting that allows me to set the amp to the input for the speaker client and then after a set period of time sets the amp back to whatever I was listening to when the phone rings.

[Uncle Michael]

I do this to a limited extent, but intend, just as you do, to expand it - "when I get around to it".

I use a device string to record my snapshot. I allocate each item two characters separated by a space. The space just helps me read and debug the string and one character per item is probably plenty. Then to 'take a snapshot' I have a script build a string based on the current state of the devices I want to record, in a preset order. My string might look like this "00 0A 01 00 00 10". Then I save the string as the device string of a virtual device.

To return to the saved state I have another script parse the device string and restore the appropriate conditions.

[bpm32]

Thanks to both of you for replying!

Uncle Michael, I do believe that is exactly what I had in mind. Your scripts... are those something you'd be interested in sharing to get me started? Once I see how it works, I can alter it for my needs... if in fact it would actually need any altering - it sounds spot on to what I'm looking for.

Again, thanks for your responses!

Brian

[jsteed]

Take a look at Scene_Stack in the script library http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...ighlight=stack