Indigo Domotics

apologies in advance for what may be a dumb question.

i understand fing actively monitors devices connected to networks. i think i understand what up status means - i.e. a device is actively connected to the network (presumably tested by sending it a packet and getting the expected response). i can guess what down means - i.e. the opposite of up - a device is not responding to active requests such as pings. i don't really understand what expired means or how it differs from down.

also how do these states translate into a status of home vs. away?

i just caught on to the fact (by reading the description - "DUH!" - should have done that earlier) that FINGSCAN's primary purpose seems to be home/away tracking and triggering on those transitions (akin to geo-fencing sort of?), so perhaps my questions about using it for monitoring connectivity/health of devices are off-the-mark? if so, please let me know.

a device state Status is
up: if fingscan sees a broadcast message (continuous listening) from that device or if it answers a icmp message (or a ping if you switch it on in device edit)
down: if none of above for time > expiration time, (you can chose to double check with a ping induce edit)
expired: if down for time > expiration time (you can chose to double check with a ping induce edit)

using the default of 90 secs for expiration time (you can set that in config and overwrite for each device individually):
after 90 secs up -> down if no "signal'
after 180 sec down -> expired if no signal
as soon as a new "signal" xx -> up


you can combine devices into groups to create events (i.e. 3 ip devices in one group will generate allHome, oneHome, oneAway allAway events )

hope that helps

Karl

yes, that helps a huge amount. thanks, karl!

your explanation covers up/down/expired. can you elaborate a bit more on what "home" and "away" mean? are they just synonyms for up/down? (perhaps i am making this too complicated?)

the devices do not have that status.. the events do

allHome = all devices in that group are up
OneHome = at least one device in that group is up
oneAway = at least one device in that group is not up
allAway = all devices in that group are not up
use:

allaway --> at least one home ==> somebody just came home

kw123 wrote:

using the default of 90 secs for expiration time (you can set that in config and overwrite for each device individually):

can you tell me how i can change the expiration times? i don't see anything that looks like default expiration time in the plugin settings.

i don't see how to set it in the parameters of individual device settings, either.

sorry my mistake.. too many plugins

FINGSCAN reads the output of FING.BIN (log and status) then interprets it. (+ some ping etc stuff)

FING has 3 states:
1. up
2. down (if has not send and packages and does not answer port scan
3. not listed = not in FINGs data, remove from down after some time .. i believe it is 1 minute after up--> down

this is used to translate in FINGSCAN to:
up-->up
down--> down
not listed (if it was there before) --> expired

Karl

ps expiration time is used in UniFi, pibeacon , mother plugins as they set the timings

I have put 3 devices in Event2 (my phone, iPad, and MacBook).
When a _oneAway event triggers, what variable are accessible to me in the action script?
I'd like to know which device(s) are home and which are away, so I can make decisions.
It'd be nice to have access to a variable list of all ipDevices that belong the Event, so I can use the same code for my wife's equivalent 3 devices.

It looks like the event triggers only when the first device "leaves" (becomes down). Correct?
Suppose I want to do something when both my phone AND iPad are gone, but they might not "go down" at the same time
[That probably indicated I'm gone for the weekend.]

Any suggestions?

One away means at least one away. That only triggers from 0 to 1 away. Not from 1 to 2 away.


There should be a variable that shows the last device that changed.

I only have my Phone for the next 2 days. Can not check.


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No hurry. Reply when you have time.

Another observation about home/away events.

The EVENT_N_ oneAway event seems to trigger properly. I went out with my phone this morning, and it logged:

Aug 29, 2018 at 10:37:27 AM
Trigger John's device left home
Email Sent to "{me}"; subject "fingscan says John left home"

but the EVENT_N_ allHome event seems to trigger over and over.
I got home just after noon, and I see

Aug 29, 2018 at 12:05:30 PM
Trigger John is back home
Email Sent to "{me}"; subject "fingscan says John is back home"

Aug 29, 2018 at 12:14:31 PM
Trigger John is back home
Email Sent to "{me}"; subject "fingscan says John is back home"

Aug 29, 2018 at 12:45:34 PM
Trigger John is back home
Email Sent to "{me}"; subject "fingscan says John is back home"

Aug 29, 2018 at 12:47:29 PM
Trigger John is back home
Email Sent to "{me}"; subject "fingscan says John is back home"

. . . and it continues, not on a regular basis. The next event was 1:32, then 1:40. I don't see a pattern. What can I do to force it to trigger only once?

I have no "conditions" on either event, and the sole action is to send an indigo email with the Subject you see above, which is working.

(No need to respond until you're back home, and as I said earlier, I'll be away this weekend, so probably won't be able to do anything until Tuesday.)

could you post the parameter of the event(menu print ...) you might need to set the timers longer (re-trigger ...)

Karl

See attached screenshot.

Could you perhaps elaborate on the relationships and interactions between the various timers:

• the fingscan global polling rate. (I thought I saw a settable value for this somewhere, but now, of course, I can't find it )
  and how much does it matter whether I do serial or parallel polling? I have about 25 devices right now.
• the event's Min before AWAY status will trigger
• the event's Min before HOME can re-trigger. ("RE-" trigger, not just "trigger"?)

Thanks for your help. I'm sure its just a matter of my understanding the details and fine-tuning things.

I'm going to experiment with setting my own variable 'JohnsStatus' when the various events trigger. Then, I can do a condition on that variable before running the script.. E.g., in the allHome event, make it conditional on JohnsStatus != "Home" , and setJohnsStatus = "Home" in the action. But in theory, I shouldn't need that, right?

PS. Indigo also has a check-box to enable/disable events, so isn't the setting inside the fing event redundant?

the fingscan global polling rate. (I thought I saw a settable value for this somewhere, but now, of course, I can't find it

time between pings: "seconds to sleep between probing"/2 = 2 pings in each main loop in plugin.

and how much does it matter whether I do serial or parallel polling? I have about 25 devices right now.

serial time between pinging a device: max : n*wait-time-forpingResponse = all devices offline; min= n*0.1 secs= all devices answering immediately
wait-time-forpingResponse = 0.9 secs; n = number of devices

the event's Min before AWAY status will trigger

: when a device goes off = fing does not see any traffic and or does not answer pings.. plugin will wait "Min before AWAY" before setting status to away

the event's Min before HOME can re-trigger. ("RE-" trigger, not just "trigger"?)

at least "Min before HOME can re-trigger" time must have passed before HOME can trigger again.
eg if last HOME trigger was 00:10:00 and "Min before HOME can re-trigger" is set to 5 minutes: no HOME trigger before 00:15:00
if Home never triggered it is immediate.
this gives the device a chance to re- appear again instead of doing Home Home Home every 5 minutes when eg the iPhone goes to sleep.
So if you set it to 25 minutes. The phone has to be asleep at least 25 minutes to enable a Home trigger, or on the negative side: you have to be at least 25 minutes physically away before you can come HOME again.
This is an issue with all phones as they have sophisticated power saving methods to extend battery life, they minimize any traffic.

Enable disable event: yes in principle it’s not absolutely needed. But the internal disable will stop the logic at the beginning of the process while the indigo enable/disable does it at the very end of the process.
You can define events wo any indigo trigger
defined.

hope that helps.

Karl

Thanks, Karl. I think I get it, but it'll take me a while to digest and figure out how to set these to effectively meet my needs.

Also, thanks for the insight about iPhones and power saving. I was wondering why I was getting false "away" messages.
Does it help any to set "Wake on LAN" with iPhones? Do you have a heuristic for how long I should ignore a down iPhone before deciding its REALLY away?

PS - I'm gonna be away for a week, again.

For that I have introduced the home away plugin... still in final beta. But you can try it.

It does a time gate with doors and the iPhones. Only if doors get opened/ closed the iPhone can come home or go away.


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