The Update Frequency determines how often the Plug-in automatically contacts the SurePet Servers and downloads all the information relating to your installation.
The SurePet API is not official published and I am not aware of whether SurePet currently place any restrictions on the amount of access, or might do in the future. This is obviously a concern. If you use the SurePet App on iOS or Android, or login to the Web Page, then there may be fairly rapid traffic for a short period but only whilst you have the App or Web Page open. Using the Plug-in the downloads will continue 24/7. Currently the plug-in sets a lower limit of once per minute, but even this amounts to 1440 downloads a day, so think whether this is necessary before selecting a short frequency.
My setup consists of a Cat Door a Hub and 2 pets. The only things of importance that I desire frequent updates for are the pet locations. Other updates, such as battery, signal level, renaming devices, etc are not needed at any rapid frequency. I happen to have a number of web cams, one of which covers an area which includes the cat door. The web cams also act as motion sensors controlling virtual devices in HS. For the web cam that covers the cat door I have a 'mask' set to fine tune the motion detection so that it only really triggers if something goes in or out of the cat door. I also have a very dim low powered LED light next to the door which is enough that the motion triggers still work at night. I have the motion detection timeout set at 30 seconds and an event in HS to update the SurePet information whenever motion ceases. I have the automatic Update Frequency set at 1 hour intervals and an event in HS to update the SurePet information every time motion ends. This way the pet locations are updated within 30 seconds of a pet entering or exiting the cat door but the total number of information downloads a day is quite low.
I used the existing web cam, because it was convenient, but any type of motion sensor could be used in a similar manner.
Another possibility I considered was to find a way to trigger an HS device based on the real time notifications that SurePet send to the Phone App when a pet enters or exits. However, I have an iPhone and there doesn't appear to be anyway to automatically react to notifications. On Android this is probably possible and would be an excellent way of triggering the plug-in to download updated information.
It is worth noting that the Time that the plug-in shows against the pet location is the time reported from the API, not the time the information was downloaded. So, if the Pet last entered at 14:20:06 but the plug-in didn't update the information until 14:30:00 the Last Change Time will correctly show as 14:20:06. This is relevant if you say setup an event to notify you if your pet has been out for longer than a certain period of time.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is really to think about whether you really need to be hitting the SurePet Servers with hundreds of repeated requests when chosing your update frequency.
Steve
The SurePet API is not official published and I am not aware of whether SurePet currently place any restrictions on the amount of access, or might do in the future. This is obviously a concern. If you use the SurePet App on iOS or Android, or login to the Web Page, then there may be fairly rapid traffic for a short period but only whilst you have the App or Web Page open. Using the Plug-in the downloads will continue 24/7. Currently the plug-in sets a lower limit of once per minute, but even this amounts to 1440 downloads a day, so think whether this is necessary before selecting a short frequency.
My setup consists of a Cat Door a Hub and 2 pets. The only things of importance that I desire frequent updates for are the pet locations. Other updates, such as battery, signal level, renaming devices, etc are not needed at any rapid frequency. I happen to have a number of web cams, one of which covers an area which includes the cat door. The web cams also act as motion sensors controlling virtual devices in HS. For the web cam that covers the cat door I have a 'mask' set to fine tune the motion detection so that it only really triggers if something goes in or out of the cat door. I also have a very dim low powered LED light next to the door which is enough that the motion triggers still work at night. I have the motion detection timeout set at 30 seconds and an event in HS to update the SurePet information whenever motion ceases. I have the automatic Update Frequency set at 1 hour intervals and an event in HS to update the SurePet information every time motion ends. This way the pet locations are updated within 30 seconds of a pet entering or exiting the cat door but the total number of information downloads a day is quite low.
I used the existing web cam, because it was convenient, but any type of motion sensor could be used in a similar manner.
Another possibility I considered was to find a way to trigger an HS device based on the real time notifications that SurePet send to the Phone App when a pet enters or exits. However, I have an iPhone and there doesn't appear to be anyway to automatically react to notifications. On Android this is probably possible and would be an excellent way of triggering the plug-in to download updated information.
It is worth noting that the Time that the plug-in shows against the pet location is the time reported from the API, not the time the information was downloaded. So, if the Pet last entered at 14:20:06 but the plug-in didn't update the information until 14:30:00 the Last Change Time will correctly show as 14:20:06. This is relevant if you say setup an event to notify you if your pet has been out for longer than a certain period of time.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is really to think about whether you really need to be hitting the SurePet Servers with hundreds of repeated requests when chosing your update frequency.
Steve
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