Wondering if somebody can clarify something and point me in the right direction here…
I have an Everspring ST814 temp/humidity sensor - it is installed and functioning with not very frequent updates on battery power, but I believe it to be working as expected with the wakeup times currently programmed.
I can increase the wakeup frequency to get more updates but this compromises battery life, significant if you want a relatively fast response to a temp change.
So the manual shows how to set up temp ON and OFF alerts and I was able to set those variables to do so. I can do it remotely through vera or on the unit itself - both methods seem to work.
If I watch the dashboard, and warm (or cool) the sensor I can see an alert Pop up that says “Temp exceeding 70 degrees” or something and it’s relatively quick. This is great, because instead of waking up the sensor to TX data every minute, the sensor can have longer sleep periods but still wakes up when the event happens at the sensor and transmits the data to the controller.
So far so good… I feel like I’m on the right track.
But how do I use this “alert” ? On UI7 and a Vera lite I don’t see a way to trigger a scene based on that alert? It shown on the dashboard, but I want that to create an action.
If I set up a scene around the temp sensor to say trigger when temp exceeds X , that works, but falls prey to the long sleep cycles as it only receives the temp data at the wake intervals, not at the time the event happened. Also I noticed setting this temp values in the scene has no effect on the ON / OFF alerts in the sensor itself as it’s a function of the SW on the Vera controller itself, just monitoring the changes in values reported at the intervals received.
So … my question if somebody can point me right direction … is my understanding reasonable so far - and how do I use these very convenient alerts to Vera to trigger an action?
I don’t know how you can trap the alerts form within UI7. But, I wonder, does the current temperature reading not get updated when an alert is sent?
I would expect the current temperature to update when the alert is sent. In this case I would create a scene that is triggered when temperature exceeds 70 degree. Then I’d set an alert to be sent when temperature exceeds 70 degrees. My expectation is that the alert gets sent at 70 degrees, which updates the current temperature, which triggers the scene. Does this not happen?
Thanks for an alternate perspective … I will try that experiment.
I suppose that means I have to set 2x high points and 2x low points to make it work and I was focused on just trying to use either way and not both together. Bit of a pain to update multiple set points but let me see…
[quote=“triwave, post:3, topic:189232”]I suppose that means I have to set 2x high points and 2x low points to make it work[/quote]I’m not really sure why you would need to do this.
A single high temp alert and a single low temp alert should be sufficient to handle thermostatic control of a fan, for example, where the fan is On when above 70 and Off when below 69.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:4, topic:189232”][quote=“triwave, post:3, topic:189232”]I suppose that means I have to set 2x high points and 2x low points to make it work[/quote]I’m not really sure why you would need to do this.
A single high temp alert and a single low temp alert should be sufficient to handle thermostatic control of a fan, for example, where the fan is On when above 70 and Off when below 69.[/quote]
I guess what I meant is you have to set the High trigger on the sensor itself ; that triggers an update of the current temp to Vera ; then in vera you need a scene that triggers off of the current temp ; It’s a bit clunky because if you change one you need to change the other, and to top it off the Vera is in Deg F (in USA) and the values you write to the sesnor are in Deg C (w/o decimal) so they are not even exactly the same … it takes away from the precision as well as creates one more thing to screw up , forgetting or converting a value incorrectly.
The Vera scene only needs a single high and a single low as you point out … unless I missed your point
Hi Z-Waver - I ran some experiments with the Everspring set points (On and OFF) to trigger updates to Vera, which could then in turn trigger scenes. For simplicity I just made the scene send me a notification and moved the sensor in and out of the refrigerator to move the sensor above and below the set points.
At first I got some promising results and then frustration with inconsistent results. In the end I think the issue was around Vera sending me e-mail notifications - slowly I discivered e-mails coming in with time stamps that were 20 or 30 minutes old … so when I thought things didn’t trigger maybe they did. It was actually kind of a mess … all of a sudden I got 10+ e-mails I couldn’t correlate.
So I have a question - is it common that Vera is slow with e-mail? I mean gmail is darn near instant for everything else I do so I don’t think that is where the delay is … it looks like the message comes not from the controller itself, but from a Vera server somewhere else … so maybe it gets too busy??
In an attempt to sort things out before I figured out the e-mails were stuck in queue somewhere I instead tried to send updates from the sensor after a change of 1 degree (Celsius) and that seems to work. The dash board kept updating approx every degree … I could watch the sensor warm from 15 to 16, 17, 18, etc. I used that to trigger a scene that was a lightbulb instead of an e-mail and it was much easier to observe. It seems to work.
I now wonder if the original ON/OFF triggers I set would also work … an experiment for another day…
So is there a reliable way to get a notification from an event on Vera or are we constrained by the speed of servers at Vera somewhere to process our notifications? Are SMS (but limited to 2) faster?
[quote=“triwave, post:6, topic:189232”]So is there a reliable way to get a notification from an event on Vera or are we constrained by the speed of servers at Vera somewhere to process our notifications? Are SMS (but limited to 2) faster?[/quote]Both of these services rely on Vera Ltd.'s servers which are notorious for delays. The best notification method I’m aware of is the Vera Alerts plugin and smartphone app combination. This can do direct notifications, SMTP, SMS, and lots more.
For testing like you were attempting, it’s always best to use all local communication. Rather than sending notifications, just turn on a lamp, as you wound up doing.
I instead tried to send updates from the sensor after a change of 1 degree (Celsius) and that seems to work.
Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you had already tried that and had issue with battery consumption.
It sounds like you got it working as desired. Great!
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