[APP][Pro] Advanced Virtual Device (Device Capabilities App) with Unique Text Status Indicator

[Peter_Bittner]

Thanks @DirkG for moving.
@Arie_J_Godschalk i have looked at Power by the Hour and similar Apps but these have the focus on home consumption and load shifting to minimise the cost of powering the home based on the buy price over time.
My focus is on making money from selling energy at the highest sell price while also ensuring I have enough power to power my home, maximising battery charge to make sure it will last through the night, as well as load shifting (e.g. EV charge) to when the buy price is really cheap (can be -ve), or I have an excess of solar.
This is quite complex and probably needs an object oriented approach. I need to do more reading on AVD’s but on the surface they look like they can be treated as objects and assigned values. Can they also be assigned behaviours?

I’m unsure how common this requirement is. Should I start a new post just for this discussion?

[Wout_van_den_Dool]

I posted my full setup and TEF file with Advanced Virtual Device, Homeyscript and Flow in a separate topic, with a multi step approach. It is for the Ecoforest / Eplucon Heatpump

[Sebby5]

@Arie_J_Godschalk

@Sebby5

But I try to understand how the pairing is done, also when a field is changed.

I will need to check that. It is indeed based on grouping 2 fields together, but when you change properties/icon/etc, they should stay grouped (target and measure).

Hi Arie,
Have you had the chance to look at this, or maybe a feature to orden fields?

[Arie_J_Godschalk]

@Sebby5

Have you had the chance to look at this, or maybe a feature to orden fields?

No, sorry.

Im still waiting for some bugs in the homey-api to be resolved, and my hp2023 working correctly again

[Rrrr]

[quote=“[Profile] Arie J. Godschalk, post:3, topic:70663”]

Donations or Sponsorship.

You can help with the development, maintenance and support for the Apps, by donating or becoming a sponsor.
This would be much appreciated!
The more donations i receive, the more time i can make free for development and support.

Donations can be done through:

[/quote]

I was a bit embarrassed I had not done it before, so I did it now.

@Arie_J_Godschalk is adding so many apps and so much new creative functionality to Homey that he really deserves the attention. He is a very big contributor.

Anybody who is using an app frequently and wants to thank a developer for his work and his support to all of us, it is very easy to do…simply go to links like this one which gives you all options you need

[Martin072]

Hi Arie, quick question (or maybe suggestion) for advanced devices.

I am currently using a timer flow to check when the last update was on a virtual device, and to disable it if there was no update for a little while (indicating something down the route is not working. or the actual device is not responding anymore).

Would it be an option to include a flow card that checks when the device was last updated and trigger if it hasn’t for a set amount of time? or does this already exist?

[Rrrr]

@Martin072
It depends what you mean with “update”: inactive device, or a certain state of the device, its batteries, etc.

In any case search would have helped:

You can also test if a device is available with the error status:

[Martin072]

@Rrrr
With update I mean when the Advanced device last received any update. If it hasn’t for a while it could be that the physical device is either offline or that the communication to the flow card(s) is broken (I am using MQTT a lot to update my advanced virtual devices).

I will have a look at your hints, must have missed them.

[chrb]

Hi, is it possible to create a tile like the original music tile from atom? I have an AVD which turns the radio (Sonos speaker) on / off per push. I would wish that - if the radio is playing - something like the music note is shown. is it possible? Thanks and brgds

[Peter_Kawa]

You can use emoticons in the text fields for example, and make it (dis)appear with flowcards “set [text]field X to ” when playing, “set [text]field X to ” when not playing.

(Animation: press play if it doesn’t start)

The actual textfield:
(Mind the icon is unrelated, it’s just an icon)

Flows:

Select the status indicator @ mobile app:

[Rmb]

@Arie_J_Godschalk @CaptainVoni
How do I make an AVD with a tile like
.
It is only available in the web app, not in the iPad app?

[CaptainVoni]

That’s just a regular advanced virtual device with multiple fields/capabilities. Not sure if and how it works on an iPad, but in the web app you just “repair” the AVD after adding; there you can then add different fields with their own names. It looks like this:

Each field can also have its own symbol.

As soon as you have setup all your fields, you can use advanced flows to feed some values to them.

Tip: you can not change the order of the fields after you added them and when you make certain changes to fields, they will re-order themselves arbitrary, so try to figure out exactly what fields you want before you set up the AVD.

[DirkG]

@Rmb

It is only available in the web app

Right

[Rmb]

Thanks, I will try and let you know!

[Rmb]

I found it. I just had to change the view to big tiles !

[OH2TH]

Would it be possible to add an option for advanced device capabilites to use MQTT get and set topics for values in addition to reflecting Devices, BLL or Chronograph?

Settings should be the same as for Devices, except that reading values is from one MQTT Topic and writing a value to another MQTT Topic.

Values from/to MQTT may be a direct value or optionally through JSONpath.

This is today available in the MQTT Hub/Gateway app’s MQTT device, however the app is no more been maintained by the app owner and there is discussion also going on in Slack about the future of that app.

I think this is something that could be an option for this app. And we could start living without MQTT Hub and it’s virtual devices.

Edit 2024-08-31: Created a feature request https://bitbucket.org/QlusterIT/nl.qluster-it.devicecapabilities/issues/94/

[Peter_Kawa]

Apart from “is it possible”:
MQTT Client app is also needed for this. It does send and receive MQTT payloads (also from MQTT Hub messages: the MQTT Hub is allowed to use MQTT Client directly).

So a link to MQTT Hub / contacting Harry is not needed as far as my knowledge goes.

Maybe an app-2-app link can be made; MQTT Client dev Menno van Grinsven is still ‘online’ afaik.

[Kai_Engvik]

@Arie_J_Godschalk

For Everyone who wants a Text Status Indicator (as Device Tile) without a zero or dash in front of it

Hi, As far as I can see, this is still an issue? What is the best option so far? Have the dash in front of the text? How did we acheive that again?

[Peter_Kawa]

No, since the mobile Homey app v7.x.x, Athom made it finally possible to use text as devices’ status indicator.
(It still doesn’t work @ web app)
Which means, you don’t have to use this advanced virtual device “status field” setting anymore:

Just select a text field as device status indicator

Note:

As mentioned at the begin, selecting a text field as status indicator doesn’t work @ web app yet:

Mobile app:

[Anders_Gregow]

Is it possible to create an AVD to control multiple devices, as do?
E.g. I have 5 lamps that I want to turn on/off by turning one AVD on/off, is this possible, or is it only possible to reflect the status of the lamps?