Virtual Device Creation and Modification

[david.delano]

I'll beat Randy to the punch, though he might have some more suggestions.

First, if you want to visually group there is a grouper script that I've had limited success with.

If you just want a parent/child virtual device for control, that can be fairly easy. Create the parent and children virtual circuits. Edit then to say occupied/empty or whatever you want. If your intention is that the Parent reflect the children as a group, you would just do that with events. If one of the children is set, set the parent. If one of the children is cleared, clear the parent, but only if none of the other children are set. Etc.

Note that in my group that controls the lighting as a group, I DON'T keep the group control up with a "child" if the "child" is set on it's own. Each light can still be controlled independently, having no effect on the group. The group is only used to set the entire collection to the same setting with one event. Even after that, the individual lights can be controlled individually.

What it sounds like is you want the group to maintain the summary status of the children, meaning setting the group would not do anything (you really want to make it status only) and changing the individual children is reflected in the status of the group.

David

[randy]

Hi

Thank you, this is a very helpful thread. Is it possible to create a virtual device with "Parent Root" and "Children"? In the "occupancy" scenario I am thinking of basic setup as described but 3 "Child" groups relating to "guest" rooms which can be "Occupied/Unoccupied". I know I can do this in other ways but a single control could be good.

If you want to group them Jon00's Device Grouping Utility will group them. Create your devices first, then decide which one will be the "parent" device, then group the rest as children. Here is howI group my Dimmer Default devices.



Jon's Grouping Utility does not work well on devices owned by a plug-in and is not recommended for them, but it works great on virtual devices. If that is not what you want, try describing in more detail how you want things arranged and I'm sure someone will offer ideas.

[david.delano]

I have had issues with Jon's script grouping even virtual devices that I've created.

About the only thing it has worked with is the adding virtual devices to the thermostat device group, that already had a parent.

What usually happens is I end up with a group, but there are devices that I group still stand alone, and thus duplicated. You'd think I could just delete the single device, but the check box is grey, and if I check it, there is nothing in the drop down actions box.

Also, I've grouped, had issues, so ungrouped, and ended up having to delete the devices and re-adding (a bigger issue when those devices are two hours away).

So, use at your own risk.....

David

[randy]

I have had 0 problems with his utility. I have quite a few virtual device groups, each with quite a few devices and they have all grouped and remained grouped. When you write "(a bigger issue when those devices are two hours away)", that would seem to indicate the devices are owned by a plug-in, which is not recommended. Since the thermostat is also owned by a plug-in, I would think that would cause problems as plug-ins handle their own grouping. I also think I ran into a problem when grouping devices that did not have the same Locations. I've never had the utility create duplicate devices.

[david.delano]

I tried grouping my garage door sensors at the vacation house into a group. No plugins involved. They duplicated, and went I tried to fix things, hosed everything up. I had to re-add the devices the next trip to the house.

But that does bring into question whether my issues are because I have two Z-Nets in my system, controlled by the same HS3.

One local grouping I tried to set up.......I have virtual circuits to determine if a motion detector should turn on a light or not. I tried to group the virtual circuit and the switch, so they'd be together. This ended up with duplicates. I tried creating an extra virtual circuit to be the parent, and tried using just the existing virtual circuit. None of this worked.

The garage circuit issues, though, is what has steered me away from trying much else with grouping, as much as I really want it to work.

David

[randy]

I tried grouping my garage door sensors at the vacation house into a group. No plugins involved. They duplicated, and went I tried to fix things, hosed everything up. I had to re-add the devices the next trip to the house.

But that does bring into question whether my issues are because I have two Z-Nets in my system, controlled by the same HS3.

How do your garage door sensors communicate with the devices in HomeSeer if not by way of a plug-in? If you couldn't add them remotely, it sounds like you are talking about battery operated Z-Wave devices, which are owned by a plug-in.

One local grouping I tried to set up.......I have virtual circuits to determine if a motion detector should turn on a light or not. I tried to group the virtual circuit and the switch, so they'd be together. This ended up with duplicates. I tried creating an extra virtual circuit to be the parent, and tried using just the existing virtual circuit. None of this worked.

The garage circuit issues, though, is what has steered me away from trying much else with grouping, as much as I really want it to work.

David

The switch you tried to group virtual devices with is also owned by a plug-in, so it probably would fail grouping with virtual devices, because the plug-in is trying to manage grouping. I have been able to fix and alter grouping of devices owned by a plug-in, but only when they are all owned by the same plug-in.

[david.delano]

Right, right, right you are......

I don't think of Z-Wave devices being owned by a plugin, but they are.

So, the fact that I can group a virtual device into a thermostat group works coincidentally. What you use the grouping script for is grouping virtual devices.

All makes sense now, though I really want to group Z-Wave devices.....

I especially like grouping a virtual device along with a Z-Wave device that it controls......I haven't tried making the Z-Wave device the parent....any chance that might work?

David

[randy]

I especially like grouping a virtual device along with a Z-Wave device that it controls......I haven't tried making the Z-Wave device the parent....any chance that might work?

David

Probably not, because the plug-in controls the grouping of the Z-Wave devices, it does not own or know of the virtual devices. It is possible that you could break the Z-Wave grouping or create a group that the plug-in might break.

[david.delano]

I took another tact......rather than grouping the virtual device with the device it controls, I set up a virtual device control group and added the virtual devices to it. That is useful, too. That worked without a hitch.

NOW I notice you have a "Type" column. I have a drop down that I can filter or sort by Type, but I don't see a way to add the Type column, nor where that is set up for the device. This would be very useful in marking Virtual devices as type Virtual rather than using the work Virtual in the description, or (V) as I'm starting to do.

David

[randy]

I took another tact......rather than grouping the virtual device with the device it controls, I set up a virtual device control group and added the virtual devices to it. That is useful, too. That worked without a hitch.

NOW I notice you have a "Type" column. I have a drop down that I can filter or sort by Type, but I don't see a way to add the Type column, nor where that is set up for the device. This would be very useful in marking Virtual devices as type Virtual rather than using the work Virtual in the description, or (V) as I'm starting to do.

David

You can enable and disable columns on the Device Management page under the custom tab in settings.



You can name the device type (string) on a virtual device you create on the Advanced tab of the device. If it is owned by a plug-in that field will not be editable.

[david.delano]

I looked on the correct page, but wrong section. I have that working, now. Setting that field to Virtual frees up my Location/Area settings for other use, and eliminates needing to put the word Virtual or (V) in the name.

Funny how it's sometimes little things that really clean things up.

David

[Merl]

Many thanks

I'll give Jon00 a go.

[TechFan]

Another interesting thing to note is that graphics are automatically assigned to the Status text we chose for each of the three values. HomeSeer will use a graphic with the .png extension if the Status matches the image name. In this case there are default icons vacation.png, home.png and away.png in the status icon folder. The match is not case sensetive, so Home=home, etc. The folder these icons are in is on your (Windows) server under the HomeSeer root at \HomeSeer HS3\html\images\HomeSeer\status. We will discuss Graphics files in more detail later on, but I wanted you to know that there are some behaviors that are automatic.

Great to know! It would be nice if part of this was bolded to catch the eye.

[TechFan]

I cannot immediately see a use for this in a virtual device, but if you enter 10 then the Status and Control values of the device would be 70-140, while the actual value of the device would be 80-150.

With Range Values, is there a known limit to how many values will be shown in the dropdown list. I was trying to create a device for times. . .and set the range from 0 - 2359. . .but the list box doesn't display all the options? Not sure how it chooses which ones to show in the list. I assume you can't choose the units between items (ie, 5,10,15 minute increments)?

Thanks. This thread has been very helpful.

[Stubborn]

Sidetracking:
"Here is a device I created to set the domestic hot water temperature for our house. The reason I am using this example is that it employs much of what we have discussed so far in this thread. We like really hot water, but when the grandchildren are going to come over we reduce the temperature the night before. While we could have been good with two settings, I wanted to give more flexibility, including turning it off altogether. Initially I created a value range device (we'll cover that next), but to make it easier to use for other household members, and for potential voice control later on, I changed it to off and five temperatures such that the Device Manager device looks like this"

This is very interesting. Do you have a post explaining your setup on controlling hot water temp? Something I have been looking for for a while.