Battery Low notifications

[FlyBoyBob]

[quote=“Intrepid, post:39, topic:168044”]What is the purpose of …
…and several other excellent questions[/quote]

Thanks “Intrepid” for pointing these things out - sometimes us programmers are not as explicit as we should be when it comes to code!

I have made several changes to my post that you are quoting from - post #24 on page 2 of this thread. I renamed the variables in question to make their purpose more obvious (I hope!) plus correcting the “trigger” variable name which I just plain got wrong in the explanation section.

Any further questions or confusions please post again - I appreciate the help!
bob

[ballroller]

I had the value for the HSM set wrong- I had the nodeID instead of the DeviceID. That last motion is now reporting fine, but I cant get the Schlage’s to report. I set
the low_test to 99, and those batteries are currently at 72% and 54%.

Also, I have 2 HSM’s that are at 100%. Can I set the low_test to 101?

Here is the code used:

local room = “”
local low_level = “35”
local serviceId = “urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HaDevice1”
local variableId = “BatteryLevel”
local warning = "The battery in the "
local low_test = 99
local level

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId, variableId, 22) or “0”
level = tonumber(level)
if (level<low_test) then
room = “Garage Entry-outside” low_level=level end

local message_out = warning…room…" is now at “…low_level…”%"

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId, variableId, 3) or “0”
level = tonumber(level)
if (level<low_test) then
room = “Garage Entry-inside” low_level=level end

local message_out = warning…room…" is now at “…low_level…”%"

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId, variableId, 60) or “0”
level = tonumber(level)
if (level<low_test) then
room = “JC Closet motion” low_level=level end

local message_out = warning…room…" is now at “…low_level…”%"

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId, variableId, 36) or “0”
level = tonumber(level)
if (level<low_test) then
room = “Pantry motion” low_level=level end

local message_out = warning…room…" is now at “…low_level…”%"

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId, variableId, 61) or “0”
level = tonumber(level)
if (level<low_test) then
room = “closet motion” low_level=level end

local message_out = warning…room…" is now at “…low_level…”%"

[quote=“FlyBoyBob, post:40, topic:168044”][quote=“ballroller, post:38, topic:168044”]… the email came back saying “The battery in the closet motion is now at 0%” This particular motion is at 91% in reality.
Any idea why this is happening? Does it have to do with the test level?[/quote]

The value of “0” is the diagnostic “or 0” in the line:

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId,variableId,44) or "0"

where if variable_get can’t find the variable the code at least won’t crash.

Also what it tells me is that you are probably using the deviceID for the Motion Sensor, rather than the “3-in-1”. If you look in your Dashboard you will see that each 3-in-1 (I am assuming you are using HSM100s?) shows up as 4 devices = Light, Temperature, Motion, and 3-in-1. Only the 3-in-1 deviceID contains the BatteryLevel variable. Each of the other 3 devices will return a “0”, as you have seen.

I would also recommend temporarily changing low_test to a value just above levels you are seeing on your Dashboard for each sensor. See that you get an email with the correct value, keeping in mind the code is not fancy and will only report the last detected low value.

Hope that helps!
bob[/quote]

[FlyBoyBob]

Also, I have 2 HSM's that are at 100%. Can I set the low_test to 101?

Yes, you can set it to 101 and then 100% will trigger. However you might want to try the debug code below instead:

That last motion is now reporting fine, but I cant get the Schlage's to report.

I have a Schlage Deadbolt and can confirm that the serviceId and variableId work as is.

Here’s what I do for debugging:

1. Copy your code into 2 text editors - 1 for preserving the original code and 1 for editing.

2. In your edit-for-test code delete all tested devices and use this one code group instead:

level = luup.variable_get(serviceId,variableId,3) or "0"
level = tonumber(level)
room = "Device Name" low_level=level

3. Copy and paste into your Scene.

4. Run it for each device, substituting deviceID and Device Name each time.

This debug code will read and email the BatteryLevel value for each device unconditionally. If you get a “0” the only thing that can be wrong is the deviceID.

Hope that does the trick,
bob

[Intrepid]

FlyBoy, thanks for the awesome explanation. I’ll dig back into this soon.

Instead of email, I’ve been using prowl for notifications:

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=4508.0

I’m not sure if I can pass detailed variable in this though.

[ballroller]

Thanks Bob. I will try that tonight.

[FlyBoyBob]

[quote=“Intrepid, post:44, topic:168044”]FlyBoy, thanks for the awesome explanation. I’ll dig back into this soon.
Instead of email, I’ve been using prowl for notifications:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=4508.0
I’m not sure if I can pass detailed variable in this though. [/quote]

I have never used Prowl myself (BlackBerry user ::)) but I would think that if you used the “&description” variable and set it equal to my “message_out” you could send whatever text you want.

Just guessing ???
bob

[FlyBoyBob]

@ballroller

Thanks Bob. I will try that tonight.

One more thing: you only need

local message_out = warning..room.." is now at "..low_level.."%"

once - after all devices have been tested.

Or you could get clever and make them message_out1, 2, 3 etc and create a multiline report that shows all devices with low batteries in one email. I just didn’t want to make the code too complicated for non-programmers.

bob

[ballroller]

I’m “that guy” !!!

[quote=“FlyBoyBob, post:47, topic:168044”]I just didn’t want to make the code too complicated for non-programmers.

bob[/quote]

[ballroller]

Well, I ended up writing a new scene for each battery to test. I am having problems saving my work with this UI4. It does strange things…

When I tried to edit the LUUP code and save it, when it was done saving it would revert back to the old code (everything I had done was gone!) , and sometimes it would create a whole new scene with the old code. So I would have 2 scenes that were wrong! So I deleted all of the scenes and used the wizard. That seems to work so I made a scene for every battery and added LUUP code to it. It didnt have any problem saving that for some reason.

I am going to let it run for a few days and then change the code to the low level test you originally did.

Thanks again!

[Intrepid]

OK, I tried the new code from post 24. All my wireless devices are less than a week old, so the batteries may be 100%. I let the trigger at 100 to test.

I get no email.

I see this in the log:

Scene::RunScene running 80 battery check <0x2c0c>

LuaInterface::CallFunction-3 Scene 80 failed [string “function scene_13()…”]:205: attempt to concatenate global ‘low_level’ (a nil value) <0x2c0c>

What does this mean?

edit: my battery icons in UI appear full, and I assume they show less full as battery life goes down, so this may be a case of me having full power right now. I can try some used batteries on the weekend and see what happens. Or is there a way to print the battery level to the screen, log?

[FlyBoyBob]

[quote=“Intrepid, post:50, topic:168044”]OK, I tried the new code from post 24. All my wireless devices are less than a week old, so the batteries may be 100%. I let the trigger at 100 to test.

I get no email.[/quote]
You need to set the trigger to more than the current value, so as test you can set the trigger to 101 for your 100% batteries. No need to put stale batteries in.

Try the suggestions I put in reply#42 to test each device to give yourself a warm fuzzy feeling that it is working for all devices. Be sure to use the main device number for 3-in-1’s = the one that shows “Battery Level” in your Dashboard.

Also test email as I describe in reply#24 independently of the battery level test code. Forum users have been having trouble getting good email notifications for a long time - make sure you can get that working by itself first. I have found it invaluable for testing other things = I can email myself variable values that are difficult to see any other way, for instance.

[quote=“Intrepid, post:50, topic:168044”]I see this in the log:
Scene::RunScene running 80 battery check <0x2c0c>
LuaInterface::CallFunction-3 Scene 80 failed [string “function scene_13()…”]:205: attempt to concatenate global ‘low_level’ (a nil value) <0x2c0c>

What does this mean?[/quote]
It means you found an error in my sloppy posting. The reporting string should be the variable “level_to_report”, which I have now fixed in #24. Thanks for finding that!

Hope that helps,
bob

[Intrepid]

Here is my combined code to test one device. I took your post #24 and the smtptogo info.

This seems to work. If I set the test level to 101, I get an email:

The battery in the Garage 3-in-1 is now at 100%

But when I change it back to a lower test limit of 30, I still get an email with blank battery status:

The battery in the is now at %

Shouldn’t the script terminate if it does not pass the test of actual status being greater than the test limit? What am I missing to make it do nothing if the battery is greater than the test limit?

Thanks.

local test_for_below  = 30

local room       = ""
local level_to_report  = ""
local serviceId  = "urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HaDevice1"
local variableId = "BatteryLevel"
local warning    = "The battery in the "
local level

-- duplicate these lines for each device to test
level = luup.variable_get(serviceId, variableId, 8) or "0"
level = tonumber(level)
if (level <  test_for_below) then 
  room = "Garage 3-in-1" 
  level_to_report = level 
end
-- end of duplicated lines

local message_out = warning..room.." is now at "..level_to_report.."%"

local myEmail     = "myemailgoeshere"

-- local message_out = "OMG WTF it works!!"
local send_to     = myEmail
local sender      = myEmail
local subject_out = "Battery Low Notification"

local smtp = require("socket.smtp")

local mesgt    = {
      headers  = {
      to       = send_to,
      from     = sender,
      subject  = subject_out},
      body     = message_out}

local result   = smtp.send { 
      from     = sender,
      rcpt     =  {send_to},
      source   =  smtp.message(mesgt),
      server   = "smtp2go.com",
      port     = "2525",
      user     = myEmail,
      password = "smtptogopasswordgoeshere"}

[umtauscher]

Hi Flybob,

thank you very much for your work. I am very much interrested in sending a battery low notification from my 3in1 sensor as well. Unfortuately the battery level is always reported 100% on the dashboard. Is there something wrong with my sensor, with vera’s display or is there a trick to make it show a correct level?
TIA
Umtauscher

[wscannell]

The HSM100 battery level seems to drop very quickly once the batteries get weak. It seems to go from 100% to well under 50% in a week or so. The batteries seem to last about 4 months when the unit is installed where there is a lot of motion (whether the sensor is armed or not).

[kaldoon]

The Battery level on the HSM100 Sensors is a little flakey have 6 of them in my system and the level doesn’t really seem to change - any place between 96 and 100% with brand new batteries and then 10 to 12 weeks later the sensor stops transmitting motion - wake up the sensor and the battery level has dropped significantly. Brand new batteries then everything is good again - keep 48 AAA batteries on hand :-\

[FlyBoyBob]

Intrepid:

You are missing code to exit if there is no message to send:

if (room=="") then 
  return false 
end

Place it just before the line that builds “local message_out”. It will exit if the variable “room” is never filled in with text.

I put the code in as a single line myself but made it 3 lines here to make it clear to non-programmers. I probably dropped that out of my code examples because it is “between” the two jobs that they do - I will go back to my original posts again and see if I can put it in a logical place.

Thanks for pointing that out!
bob

[umtauscher]

@kaldoon

The Battery level on the HSM100 Sensors is a little flakey have 6 of them in my system and the level doesn’t really seem to change - any place between 96 and 100% with brand new batteries and then 10 to 12 weeks later the sensor stops transmitting motion - wake up the sensor and the battery level has dropped significantly. Brand new batteries then everything is good again - keep 48 AAA batteries on hand :-\

Thanks for that information. Mine reports still 100% after having changed the batteries about 4 weeks ago.
Cheers
Umtauscher

[FlyBoyBob]

@wscannell

The HSM100 battery level seems to drop very quickly once the batteries get weak. It seems to go from 100% to well under 50% in a week or so. The batteries seem to last about 4 months when the unit is installed where there is a lot of motion (whether the sensor is armed or not).

This is a characteristic of alkaline batteries fortunately or unfortunately, not the HSM100s or the Vera. They stay at or near 100% for most of their usable life, then drop off rapidly. That’s why I need the emails!

I have tried cheap generic-brand alkalines, and name brands other than Duracell, and all give me problems and much shorter life than the Duracells. I own my own airplane and the FAA prohibits the use of anything other than Duracells in my ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter), which kind of convinced me to stick with the brand whenever I see battery problems. Just an opinion - not an endorsement!

Hope that helps,
bob

[pgrover516]

I have seven 3-in-1 sensors, 2 schlage locks, and three HM-TS001’s and am using NiMH batteries, the only useful battery info seems to come from the locks, the 3-in-1’s either read 100 or 90 and never change, the HM-TS001’s read either 100 or 50 regardless if the batteries are fresh charged though they may fall lower eventually (sometimes on a unit with fresher batteries), only the locks fall off in the way one would expect, without usable info from the device reporting becomes a secondary issue

[FlyBoyBob]

@pgrover516

… am using NiMH batteries… regardless if the batteries are fresh charged though they may fall lower eventually (sometimes on a unit with fresher batteries)…

As reference regarding NiMH rechargeable batteries:

NiMH batteries only put out 1.2vdc vs 1.5vdc for alkaline, so with the 3 in these units you get 3.6v vs 4.5v. A device that takes 4 normal cells to make 6v needs 5 rechargeables to get the same supply voltage.

NiMh batteries lose 25% of their charge per month sitting on the shelf, alkaline batteries have a typical 100% charge shelf life of 5 years. In a device where we would like the batteries to last 6 months 25%/month is significant.

From topic http://forum.mios.com/index.php?topic=629.0:

@JimMac

One more thing to watch for, be careful when using rechargeable batteries with these motion sensors the voltage is a little lower and I found that the reliability of the sensor was not to be trusted.