Different Computers wrote:Is presence a variable, or a trigger? Is it both?
Are "modes" for the house as a whole mandatory, nice, or useless? I'm thinking of "Sleep/Nice Day/Overcast/Night/Away" kinds of modes. These were critical in SmartThings, if only because of ST's very limited logic that meant modes are critical for if/then situations.
Is it important to keep folders named the same across Devices, Triggers, and Action Groups, as was the case with the demo?
Should I delete the whole demo database, rather than build on it? Seems like there's some variable logic built in that might be useful.
If you were faced with totally rebuilding your Indigo setup from zero, then based on all you've learned from putting it together once, how would you do it better?
Presence is natively a variable, though if you are using the Beacon plugin or similar, it might be a device.
Modes are certainly useful, but it depends on your usage as to whether they're mandatory - if you want to automate your house, so it does things itself, then they're probably mandatory. If you just want a nice common interface to lots of products (zwave, Insteon, Hue, Alexa, etc) then useful but not mandatory.
Naming convention is entirely up to you; nothing in Indigo uses the folder names other than yourself and your users, unless you start scripting and writing plugins that use the folders. However it does make sense to have consistency. Some users do it per room, some do per type. (Kitchen, Lounge, Study, or, Motion, Lighting, Security)
Leave the demo database as it is and create a new one.
howartp wrote:For this example, look at the virtual devices plugin.
http://wiki.indigodomo.com/doku.php?id= ... nterface&s[]=virtual
Sorry, I called it a plugin, but it's built in by default, just turned off.
You want a Virtual Devices > Device Group, not a Virtual Device > Virtual On/Off Device.
As I said, set your devices (kitchen light, door light, path light, drive light, garden light) to the state you want - ie on and <x> brightness.
Then create a Virtual Devices > Device Group. Multi-select those lights in the list provided.
If you aren't going to view the status of this device manually ("Are any or all of my outside lights turned on?") then you can ignore the rest of the boxes. They determine when the device shows as On or Off in the device list in Indigo and Indigo Touch etc. By default, if any of the lights are On, the virtual device shows On. I tend to set mine to 'when all devices are on' so it only shows on if they are ALL on.
You don't need to hit 'update' at this point, just hit Save.
Now when you turn Off this device, the lights you selected will all go Off. When you turn ON the device, they will go to the stored state.
If you add a new light that you want to include in the group, just set it to it's desired state, edit this virtual device, add it to the multi-select, and hit Save. It will add the new device to the group without affecting the saved state of the other devices. If you want to edit the state of a device (say the dimmer brightness) then you need to set them all to their desired new state and tick 'Update all' before hitting save.
Hopefully that makes sense; what gets people often is that if a selected device's state is OFF when you save the state, then turning ON the virtual group will turn OFF that device.
Peter