Hello,
For weeks I have been trying to get what I believe to be quite a simple, straight forward scene to work but unfortunately I would find it easier to get blood out of a stone.
The situation:
We sometimes forget when the dryer has finished, and want an alert when it has
The solution:
Have Vera monitor the dryer usage, and when it drops below 20W send me an alert
The problem:
I tried to set this up using Vera’s scenes, but it sends an alert whenever there is any change in dryer usage below 20W e.g. 0W to 1W which is no good. I have just tried to do it with PLEG but the same still happens.
Inputs:
DryerWatts Reading from watt meter on dryer
Conditions:
DryerBelow20W DryerWatts<20
Notification:
DryerFinished Notification to me
Could someone please help?
Thank you
Did you check Repeat on the Condition DryerBelow20W? If you leave this unchecked, the Condition should only fire when the power changes from above/equal 20W to below 20W. Set the Action for DryerBelow20W to send your notification.
If you still have problems, post the PLEG Status report as a PDF.
Thanks for the reply.
I did have the box checked, yes. Will see how it goes.
Since Vera support have uploaded a modified control file for my monitor/switch, the rule is now firing correctly. However, I want to develop is further as I sometimes get spikes in usage that cause an alert to be generated. I have tried to use the PLEG manual to create some more conditions, but PLEG complains that: Program Logic Event Generator[20] : DryerAbove20W>5:00;DryerBelow20W: Invalid Key token: 5:00. Below is my setup. I am trying to get an alert generated when the usage drops below 20W, but only after usage has been above 20W for at least 5 minutes.
Inputs:
DryerWatts Reading from watt meter on dryer
Conditions:
DryerBelow20W DryerWatts<20
DryerAbove20W DryerWatts>20
DryerFinished DryerAbove20W>5:00;DryerBelow20W
Notification:
DryerFinished Notification to me when DryerFinished is satisfied
Does anyone have any suggestions? I think ideally I would want the rule to be to send an alert when the usage has been above 20W for 5 or more minutes, and is then below 20W for 5 minutes, but until I can get the rule above working I don’t think there is much point in trying.
Thanks for the help
DryerAbove20W>5:00
This is an expression, and an expression does not have a timestamp.
The sequence expression operates on timestamps …
You can put this in it’s own condition … the condition will get a timestamp.
Then use the new condition name in the sequence expression.
I don’t know if I follow you sorry.
I think you’re saying that I need condition which checks to see if the dryer usage has been above 20W for 5 minutes, which will generate a timestamp. I will then need another condition which will check if the usage has been below 20W for 5 minutes, which will generate another timestamp. Finally, another condition should be created to check if these two conditions have timestamps within 5 minutes of each other, and if so generate an alert?
EDIT 1:
Actually having read it again, I think I understand. I would create a new condition (DryerInUse say) with the expression DryerAbove20W>5:00, and then put this into the DryerFinished condition as DryerInUse;DryerBelow20W?
EDIT 2:
Right, I think I have it working now. I’ve defined the conditions below.
Triggers:
tDryerWatts: Reading from watt meter on dryer
Conditions:
cDryerNotInUseThreshold: tDryerWatts<20
cDryerNotInUse: cDryerNotInUseThreshold;Now>5:00
cDryerInUseThreshold: tDryerWatts>20
cDryerInUse: cDryerInUseThreshold;Now>5:00
DryerFinished: cDryerInUse;cDryerNotInUse
Notification:
DryerFinished: Notification to me when DryerFinished is satisfied
Does anyone see any problems with the above, or any situations where it would not work?
Thank you for your help