Event to blink lights and remember original state

[DancingPaul]

I would like to create an event that blinks the garage door lights 5 times every time there is a call to open or close the garage door, regardless of time of day. Because they are on a timer at sunset and sunrise (or people have them on due to cloudiness, etc), I would also need to remember the original state of the lights and return them to this state.

Is this possible? Would this need multiple events? One to watch if anyone uses open/close and than that one would call the light blinking? Maybe another to keep state? I would usually do this with a script but Homeseer event logic is taking me a bit to catch on to.

-Paul

[Uncle Michael]

The EasyTrigger plug-in will allow you to set a device value to another device, so you could use an event action to set a virtual device to the value of the light before starting the blink.

How you accomplish the blink sequence will depend on the light.

Restoring the light after the blink sequence may require a separate event, or just reversing the EasyTrigger value exchange, but that depends on the light and how you implement the blink sequence.

[DancingPaul]

The light is just 2 standard wall sconces on a zwave switch.

[DancingPaul]

Isn't there a wayo to just set the present state of the light to a variable and use some if/then, else?

[randy]

Isn't there a wayo to just set the present state of the light to a variable and use some if/then, else?

There is no "else".

You can use a Virtual Device and Easy Trigger’s “Set device to another device” to store the current value of your light to the Virtual Device and to restore the light from the Virtual Device. The blink is a little more difficult. If you want it to flash at a 2 second rate, you could use a series of actions separated by a 1 second wait or delayed events and a counter. The first method would require about 12 actions and 5 wait actions. The other would require 4 events and a counter. Either way it would blink at about a 2 second rate.

[Uncle Michael]

The light is just 2 standard wall sconces on a zwave switch.

I don't have any zwave switches. Is there a way to make them blink or are you intending to turn them on and off using HS?

Isn't there a wayo to just set the present state of the light to a variable and use some if/then, else?

Virtual devices are the equivalent of variables in HS. So, you'd put the current state in a virtual device, then set the switch back to the state in the virtual device after the blink sequence. (You could also do the entire task with a script, which would have the structure you describe, but it would require the use of CAPI commands, which have their own learning curve. If you want to go the script route, I'd recommend you take a look at the TenScriptAid tool. It provides information about device properties and very useful example code to help with CAPI command syntax.)

[DancingPaul]

OK,

So I have gotten it working on 1 garage door. I have created a virtual device, create an event to watch for a 'closing' or 'opening' change on the door, set the virtual device to the value of the light. Then I turn the light on and off 5 times using a 1 second delay between each (this seems incredibly archaic this way but I guess it works), Then set the light back to the setting from the virtual device.

The only question I have here is that I'd like to get the blinking to start earlier. It only starts after the door is moving because thats when the state changes. I can't trigger a state of 'open' because thats after it's done. I'd like it to start blinking before or as the door starts moving or when the 'open' is pressed, but not sure how to call that.

Secondly, this works for an on/pff light but when I try to use a dimming light, the easytrigger says that it can't set the value to the device. It seems like the virtual device is on/off only and not capable of receiving a dim value. Is this an issue with the virtual device I created? Is Dimmable is checked.

[randy]

OK,

So I have gotten it working on 1 garage door. I have created a virtual device, create an event to watch for a 'closing' or 'opening' change on the door, set the virtual device to the value of the light. Then I turn the light on and off 5 times using a 1 second delay between each (this seems incredibly archaic this way but I guess it works), Then set the light back to the setting from the virtual device.

The only question I have here is that I'd like to get the blinking to start earlier. It only starts after the door is moving because thats when the state changes. I can't trigger a state of 'open' because thats after it's done. I'd like it to start blinking before or as the door starts moving or when the 'open' is pressed, but not sure how to call that.

Secondly, this works for an on/pff light but when I try to use a dimming light, the easytrigger says that it can't set the value to the device. It seems like the virtual device is on/off only and not capable of receiving a dim value. Is this an issue with the virtual device I created? Is Dimmable is checked.

For your garage door we would need to know how you control it - what devices or plug-in you use.

You need to make your Virtual Device match your physical device for dimmers. A dimmer usually has fixed values for On, Off and last level and a range of 1-98. You don’t have to create all of the values, though I prefer to have the devices match. You can create a single range of 0-255 to store a dimmer’s value, though you will never store last level (255).

This thread can help in creating a virtual device:

https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=181973

[DancingPaul]

Thanks for the advice on virtual device. I figured that out and tweaked it. I wonder if there would be a way to 'clone' a device and create a virtual device from a real one with the same settings.

The garage is controlled by a nortek/gocontrol GD004

[randy]

Thanks for the advice on virtual device. I figured that out and tweaked it. I wonder if there would be a way to 'clone' a device and create a virtual device from a real one with the same settings.

The garage is controlled by a nortek/gocontrol GD004