Pico Button Press Delay in HomeKit

[kappa12]

I suspect this is a topic for the HomeKitLink Siri support area, but I'll start here since it's the first component in the flow that I'm having an issue with.

I'm using the Lutron RRA2/Caséta plugin and it's great, thanks for creating it I've set it up to expose several Pico remotes to HomeKit via the HomeKitLink Siri plugin. This works, but I need to press the Pico buttons for several seconds before the button status is reflected in HomeKit and any HomeKit automations are triggered. I can see the button presses almost instantaneously in Indigo (the state changes from off to on, then back), so I know the Lutron plugin is working properly. My guess is the quick presses where the button state in Indigo changes from off to on to off again within a tenth of a second is too short of a duration for the HomeKit plugin to recognize it and broadcast it.

Has anyone else had similar issue and found a way to work around it? I was thinking I could set up a virtual device in Indigo that shadows the Pico button but stays on for some predefined duration that's long enough for HomeKit to recognize it, then automatically turns itself off, but this seems a bit complex for such a simple problem. I'm hoping there's a more elegant solution that can solve the issue.

If this is definitely something for the HomeKitLink Siri support area, I'll repost there. Thanks!

[FlyingDiver]

Yeah, this is all about HKLS, not the Lutron plugin. But I do want to ask - why do you want a button press sent to HomeKit? Is there a reason you can't do the automation logic in Indigo?

[kappa12]

Thanks for confirming, I'll post in the HKLS support area.

I'm using the Picos to control non-Lutron shades (Eve Motionblinds), which are only accessible via HomeKit afaik (I'd love to be proven wrong about that). It'd work if Indigo supported Matter, but I understand it's a very new technology and likely won't be on the roadmap any time soon.

[FlyingDiver]

Yeah, not being able to control HomeKit devices from Indigo is an issue. Not sure there's ever going to be a solution to that.

[durosity]

Yeah, not being able to control HomeKit devices from Indigo is an issue. Not sure there's ever going to be a solution to that.

I don’t want to get too far off topic, but couldn’t it be reverse engineered like in Home Assistant? Or even base a plugin off the project posted for that?

[FlyingDiver]

Yeah, not being able to control HomeKit devices from Indigo is an issue. Not sure there's ever going to be a solution to that.

I don’t want to get too far off topic, but couldn’t it be reverse engineered like in Home Assistant? Or even base a plugin off the project posted for that?

I didn't realize that HA could do that until yesterday. I'm looking into how HA does it, but the first issue I'm seeing is that HomeKit compatible devices can ONLY be paired to HomeKit OR Home Assistant, but not both. Not sure how well that would go over with the user base.

[durosity]

Not sure how well that would go over with the user base.

That is absolutely correct, you can’t pair HomeKit devices to more that one controller (unless it supports other protocols at the same time like the Hue hub).

I would imagine that it’d be pretty popular.. there’s gonna be a lot of people who bought HK kit when starting off, before realising Apple Home is too basic for their needs and it gets replaced by something more suitable. Also it’d seem the functionality is pretty popular on the HA side of things, a fair few YouTubers seem to have a lot of HK equipment despite a lack of any actual Apple equipment due to HK requiring offline support as part of the certification process.

Personally, I only have one native HomeKit device, my Netatmo heating system. I’m very much in two+ minds as to what I want to do with that.. I very much like it independent of Indigo in case my server goes down, but then for Indigo integration I need to use a cloud API, and after what’s happened with the d**ks at Tado and their launching of subscriptions on TRV users it’s made me very wary of anything cloud connected devices. So now I need to decide do I keep it as is, do I change the HK connection to HA and use the bridge to connect it to indigo and block the Netatmo from the internet? Do I try to make a HomeKit plugin like in HA? Do I ditch Netatmo and go z-wave or Zigbee? Do I switch to something expensive like heatmeiser that has a local api? Ooof so many choices and I’m just prattling on now completely off topic.

[kappa12]

Yeah, this is all about HKLS, not the Lutron plugin. But I do want to ask - why do you want a button press sent to HomeKit? Is there a reason you can't do the automation logic in Indigo?

After thinking about this a bit more, since things work if I hold the Pico button down longer, I'm considering making a small adjustment to how Pico buttons are handled in my local version of the plugin. It's admittedly hacky, but introducing a delay before the "off" state should theoretically do it, right?

Code: Select all

plugin.py:1309

        if address in self.picos:
            self.logger.debug(f"Received a pico button status message: {cmd}")
            dev = indigo.devices[self.picos[address]]
            if status == '0':
            	self.sleep(3)   # Delay the Pico button "off" state to make sure HKLS has time to transmit the "on" state
                dev.updateStateOnServer(ONOFF, False)
            elif status == '1':
                dev.updateStateOnServer(ONOFF, True)

Since this is all I use the plugin for so far, this seems easier than managing a bunch of virtual on/off switches and action groups, but I'm not familiar with how the plugin is structured and I understand I could be introducing downstream impact without realizing it. Am I going down the wrong path here?

[FlyingDiver]

Unless there's other Lutron events happening at the same time, there shouldn't be any impact.

But I would start with 1.0 second and increase until it works properly. 3 seconds is a LONG time.

[kappa12]

I thought I'd need around a 3 second delay since I had to hold the button that long to get the expected behavior in HomeKit, but a 1 second delay appears to work. Thanks for the hint!