Already having PLEG running and didn’t now about Reactor. I want to use it to be notified when something is running for 1 hour, for example garage door is left open. So far, I don’t know how to do that with PLEG, as it only is used for actions, like turning on things with conditions.
Can’t see any reasons why not
C
Works for me (I’m trying to move from PLEG to reactor, just haven’t finished yet. )
Cool to hear that. Thinking about doing the same!
I had them both running at the same time, as I was making the transition. Everything is on Reactor now.
I had been using PLEG for years, was great. I tried using Reactor could not figure it out. Tried again after watching some how to videos, then finally clicked on how to use it. Once I got past the hurdle I simply found it easier to use. Yes the learning curve can be a bit steep; however watching the videos made it so simple afterwards.
Thanks for your reply. Already did some clicking around and think I could use it too.
How works creator different like PLEG with things like triggers and conditions? I mean in PLEG you define a condition and can use this condition many times in other conditions. Know what I mean?
The same for triggers, they can be used and mixed.
Reactor allows you to make reusable conditions. You can even define conditions in one Reactor sensor that can be used by another, so for example, you can have a ReactorSensor that contains all of your “house-wide” logic for whether you are home or not, and whether it’s day, evening, or night, and whether your house is in party mode or not, and perhaps if you have a guest in the house. You can then use all these condition states in other ReactorSensors to determine how each room/zone/area/level behaves.
This is basically how I run my house. I have a couple of “central” ReactorSensors that contain generic logic used in many places, (exactly) like those items enumerated above. Then I have a ReactorSensor for each room to contain all of that room’s logic–not a requirement, just a structure I find convenient. The guest room lengthens its delays for automatic lights-off when a guest is in the house, and the kitchen leaves the undercabinet LEDs on all night in case they get up for a snack or drink; otherwise, they don’t need to be on. The patio and pool lights go off at a late hour, unless the house is in party mode, in which case the automatic shutdown of lights is inhibited. Party mode resets itself every morning, in case I “forget” (too busy searching for Berocca). Other outdoor lights and landscape lights are controlled similarly. If I decide I want to change the definition of “night”, all I need to do is change the central “it’s night” rule in one place, and all the other logic just follows along, because the room ReactorSensors just ask the central one if it’s night, the logic itself isn’t duplicated. Nor do I need a monolithic scene to control every area in the house when night arrives–the actions for each room are distributed to the room in which they are relevant, making them easy to find and change, or even disable with one click.
And you can make as many ReactorSensors as you like–it costs very little in terms of system resources, and even less in terms of real currency.
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Perfect! This is what I am aiming for!
C
Thanks, going to play around with reactor.
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OK, now I’ve seen everything. C’mon, man. This needs an explanation.
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Sure, this is all how I’ve designed it to be, not specifically for PLEG, but so any external subsystem/other plugin can inoperate with Reactor. It began on the trigger side, because you may remember that the first version of Reactor was just an advanced trigger for scenes, but it didn’t have activities of its own. When I added activities (Reactor’s version of scenes–sequences of actions to be performed), I made sure not only that the scene executive was accessible from Lua and other subsystems (like triggering), but also that it would run Vera native scenes, just better, and could function as a drop-in replacement for Vera’s native scene executive just by changing the device number in a RunScene action from 0 (the system device) to the Reactor device number.
But are you actually using them together, or just showing that it can be done? Because if you really are using them together, I’d like to see how!
Not using them together…yet.
I like PLEG because I like using sequences and find Boolean easy to use to test for device or condition states. Reactor is easy to use and an ideal primer for “newbies”.
Without PLEG Vera would have been a dead duck, Reactor enhanced the work RTS did and delivered (and keeps on delivering) but differences remain.
Using PLEG as a trigger for some Reactor Actions could be a powerful way forward for HA, Ill look into it further when I need a new automation requirement.