Can this be done using EasyTrigger

[Charles_cz]

I was wondering if I could get some help.

I would like to check to see if any device in group has value set for longer than certain period of time.

Specifically I have some motion sensors that occasionally get stuck on Motion. I would like to receive notification when any of motion sensors in group stays in motion state for more than 20 minutes.

Is that something that can be easily done with EasyTrigger? I am still learning.

Thank you. Charles

[jvm]

You can use Easy Trigger to do a check like this for a single device using the "EasyTrigger: A Device's Value is" trigger, but I believe there is no equivalent for a group. So you'd have to string a number of these together with "Or" conditions to get the effect you're after.

[Charles_cz]

That would be fine with a few devices but I need to check about 80 of them. That would get pretty tedious. I figured someone might have idea or solution to this situation. I can think of other uses as well.

[logman]

That would be fine with a few devices but I need to check about 80 of them. That would get pretty tedious. I figured someone might have idea or solution to this situation. I can think of other uses as well.

I'm not sure how accurate this would be with 80 devices, but you could try this:



Create your ET Group of motion sensors. Event 1 will start a timer when motion is detected by any motion sensor. Event 2 will stop the timer and reset it to zero if all motion sensors are set to zero (no motion). Event 3 will send you an email if the timer reaches 30 minutes, meaning at no time in 30 minutes did all motion sensors have a value of 0.

To increase the accuracy/reliability you could break the motion sensors into smaller groups (by rooms, for example) and use multiple timers.

This is the method I use to turn lights off in a room, rather than using delayed actions. If a motion sensor gets tripped, the timer resets and the lights remain on. By using multiple sensors in a room, occupancy determination is much more accurate and it eliminates "off" events being fired/canceled/fired/canceled. It also gives me the option to ramp lights down in stages as the timer count increases.

--Barry

[Charles_cz]

Hi Barry, believe it or not I have not used timers yet. 😊 I can see some issues if I understand it right.

Let's say with just two sensors ifi one is ON al the time because it is not working properly.. Timer is running. At 30 min the other sensor will trigger. I assume the email would send device info of last active sensor? In this case it would be one working properly? Is that the accuracy you were worried about?

That said I have them in groups by rooms with status motion devices for reach room. That would at leas get me in the right room. It is good start and good excuse to play with time and little bit to see if I can find some uses..😀

I was hoping there is simple solution I am missing..

[jvm]

That would be fine with a few devices but I need to check about 80 of them. That would get pretty tedious. I figured someone might have idea or solution to this situation. I can think of other uses as well.

I recently proposed a new feature for Easy Trigger that might help with your concern. See Feature Request Post #525. https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/ul...70#post1298970

The way this *might* be used for your particular issue is to have a repeating trigger - say every 5 minutes and then the proposed "run a script" action could be used to run script which checks the last updated time for an item using its device reference Id (e.g.,in my proposal "$DEVICEREF") and the &hs.devicelastchangeref($DEVICEREF) function.

The plugin author is usually very responsive to new ideas / proposals so look and see if he responds to this one. Another approach is that you might suggest a new Group Action to give a similar result to the Easy Trigger "This device's value has been in the range [x,y] for exactly" If you went down this route, I suspect it would have to be done as an Action, rather than a trigger, since there could be multiple devices meeting the criteria. The way I'd envision this working is that for each device where the timing duration test was true, you might then perform a simple script passing the script the $DEVICEREF which could then be used to perform an action on the device.

My experience is that if you propose something to the plugin author that has general usage and you've thought through how to implement it a bit and give a use case or two, he usually implements it or at least explains why its problematic to do so.

[logman]

Hi Barry, believe it or not I have not used timers yet. 😊 I can see some issues if I understand it right.

Let's say with just two sensors ifi one is ON al the time because it is not working properly.. Timer is running. At 30 min the other sensor will trigger. I assume the email would send device info of last active sensor? In this case it would be one working properly? Is that the accuracy you were worried about?

That said I have them in groups by rooms with status motion devices for reach room. That would at leas get me in the right room. It is good start and good excuse to play with time and little bit to see if I can find some uses..😀

I was hoping there is simple solution I am missing..

Yes, that is the accuracy part that I was worried about. I'm not sure which sensor Easy Trigger would pick as the trigger... The sensor with the lastest changed time, or with the oldest changed time, or the first one it encounters when scanning/testing the group by reference number (or some other table) for "True".

I guess my next question is, why do you have motion sensors getting hung? It's usually better to cure the underlying issue rather than treating the symptoms. Are your problem sensors on the fringe of their Z-Wave limit? Batteries low? Defective sensor? It's not likely the sensors are forgetting to send the "no motion" signal. So for some reason that signal is getting lost, which makes it appear the sensor is hung on. Maybe start with using the Z-Seer tool to see what the routing table looks like for the device. Optimizing the device might help, or you may find you need another repeating device nearby (which would be my first guess).

--Barry

[Charles_cz]

Yes, that is the accuracy part that I was worried about. I'm not sure which sensor Easy Trigger would pick as the trigger... The sensor with the lastest changed time, or with the oldest changed time, or the first one it encounters when scanning/testing the group by reference number (or some other table) for "True".

I guess my next question is, why do you have motion sensors getting hung? It's usually better to cure the underlying issue rather than treating the symptoms. Are your problem sensors on the fringe of their Z-Wave limit? Batteries low? Defective sensor? It's not likely the sensors are forgetting to send the "no motion" signal. So for some reason that signal is getting lost, which makes it appear the sensor is hung on. Maybe start with using the Z-Seer tool to see what the routing table looks like for the device. Optimizing the device might help, or you may find you need another repeating device nearby (which would be my first guess).

--Barry

Barry, I wish I knew. I will be calling Homeseer to see if they have some suggestions. I'm using their sensors. I have a ton of them in that house and about 6 or 7 have this random issue. That messes with my events of course and it is not acceptable..

My guess is either bad sensors or not reliable enough. I have a few in my house. I had to change a couple because they had some issues as well. (Triggering false on and off in loop for period of time).

I want to check with them before I try to exchange them.

In the mean time I think it would be good to have some way to get notified should something like this happen.

I agree that underlying problem needs to be fixed.

[logman]

Barry, I wish I knew. I will be calling Homeseer to see if they have some suggestions. I'm using their sensors. I have a ton of them in that house and about 6 or 7 have this random issue. That messes with my events of course and it is not acceptable..

My guess is either bad sensors or not reliable enough. I have a few in my house. I had to change a couple because they had some issues as well. (Triggering false on and off in loop for period of time).

I want to check with them before I try to exchange them.

In the mean time I think it would be good to have some way to get notified should something like this happen.

I agree that underlying problem needs to be fixed.

Ah, yes... I've had some strange issues with their plug-in motion detectors, mostly not triggering when it should have. But it doesn't happen often enough for me to chase down the gremlin. Aggravating.

--Barry

[Guest]

Same here . But this is not frequent.