Getting a Flic button to do more than three things

Flows
1

I have two Flic buttons by my bed. Each one supports three actions: click, double-click and hold. I use buttons so I don’t wake my wife up talking/whispering to Alexa.

I had five actions set up already but wanted to do another three. This is how I used Homey advanced flows to get three actions from a Flic double-press:

  • Turn a light on at 10% with warm colour
  • Turn it up to 100% with brightest colour
  • Turn it off

First I installed the Chronograph app. It gives some elegant ways to work with timers.

I then created my advanced flow…

LampAdvancedFlow
LampAdvancedFlow1436×790 174 KB

When executed, it looks to see if my 15 second timer is running:

  • If the timer is not running it looks to see if the lamp is on:
    If the lamp is on, it turns it off setting the dim level back to 10% (so, if I turn the light on from Alexa it comes on at 10%)
    If the lamp is off, it turns it on with a dim setting and starts the 15 second timer
  • If the timer is running it turns the brightness up and stops the timer.

So the first double-click turns it on at a dim setting. A second double-click within 15 seconds turns the brightness up. A double click after 15 seconds turns the lamp off again.

If you wanted to do two (or more) completely different things you could adapt the approach to say:

  • Start a timer with the first button press
  • If the button is pressed again within the timer interval, execute task 1 and stop the timer
  • If the timer expires, execute task 2

To get this working with a Flic button I had to add a simple flow like this…
LampSimpleFlow

It’s annoying I had to do this, but Flic can’t execute advanced flows directly (unless you know otherwise).

I then added Homey to my Flic mini-hub:

  • Log in to the hub with the Flic app
  • Tap the three dots icon
  • Tap Providers
  • Use the Homey link to connect the hub to Homey

(If you’ve already done that, use the same sequence to ‘Refresh Homeys and Flows’ so the Flic hub recognises the new flow.)

I then clicked the relevant button icon in the Flic app, selected the relevant action (double-click in my case), selected Homey, selected my simple flow, clicked ‘Save action’.

Works a treat. Smugness abounds.

Andy

1 Like
2

I don’t use the Flic buttons, but why shouldn’t they be able to be used in an AF? What is the problem? There are trigger flow cards (When…) for Click, Double Click and Hold Click available. And I’m pretty sure these trigger cards will also work with an AF.

Btw, you don’t use the flow card This Flow is started with a Yes/No-tag as it is actually supposed to be used. Because you don’t query if this flow should start with Yes- or a No-tag.
If you hover with the cursor over the tag :label: symbol of this card, then more information are shown:

image
(Translation: When this card starts, the values of these tags will be available → Start-Value)

This means that you can start a flow depending on whether it is to be started with a Yes- or a No-tag. And this have to queried with an additional logic card:

image
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3

I’m using the Homey support Flic has built-in to its hubs. Advanced flows aren’t listed in the Flic phone app when you want to connect a type of button press (click, double-click or hold) to a Homey Flow. Not just the above advanced flow, but none of my advanced flows appear.

I think you might be referring to the Homey Flic app which is community-developed. It seemed to me the built-in method provided by Flic would be more dependable (time will tell).

I used that flow card because when I went to add a ‘When’ card to start the flow the only options I get are to start it with a parameter…

FlowOptions

Did I miss something?

I suspect the above two issues are connected. To initiate an advanced flow, I’m guessing Flic would have to request the user to provide a parameter even if not needed - and that would complicate its UI.

Andy

4

Okay, understand. So you created an automation in the original Flic smartphone app, which will start a Homey Standard Flow when you click, double-click or hold a Flic Button.

Yes, I referred to the Homey Flic App. Don’t know if the Flic smartphone app is more reliable, but maybe it’s possible to connect the Flic Button in parallel with Homey. If you use a Flic Hub, I guess it will be possible.

Regarding starting an AF. It’s possible to start an AF by using the Start Button/Flow card:

image

So there is no need to use a standard flow to start an AF.

5

Thank you @Andy_Henderson, you’re flow idea works very fast and I’m sure I can think of more applications based on your timer!

You can indeed start the AF with a Start button, but not from the Flic app on the phone.
I’ll see if it makes a difference if I install the Homey flic app and then invoke an AF.

EDIT: the Homey flic app is useless.