hello, the more I try to create flows, the more I get frustrated. Today I wanted to create what I think is a very simple flow: I have a Baseus charger on my desktop that powers other devices. When the house energy is cut off, even for a second and the general switch re-arms by itself, the Baseus charger (that has a button on top of it) it does not turn back on. So I manually have to push the button
I put a Switcbot bot on top of it so that it pushes the button for me so that the Baseus will power all the devices connected.
I started creating a flow:
when: the device connect to the Baseus is unreachable
then: activate switchbot
the problem is that I don’t know how to create the “unreachable status” in a flow. I can use a smart plug (Fibaro, Meross) but they don’t have that “unreachable” option in the “when” card…
If your Homey is on the same circuit as your charger, you could use the System → ‘Homey Pro has started’ card since a power cut would force the Homey to restart.
I’m not sure how you’d use an ‘unreachable’ status in practice because the devices attached to your charger won’t necessarily be unreachable if your charger is off. Similarly if you use a smart plug to connect your charger, the plug will be unreachable only for a short time during a brief power cut during which time your Homey might also be down. However, if it helps, you can create a flow that runs every few minutes that tries to read a value from a device. You can then use the ‘error’ flow from the status card to detect the device is not responding.
Thanks Andy, Homey Pro never goes offline because it’s connected to an external battery, so I can’t use that to understand even the tiniest power outage since it’s always on thanks to the UPS.
The smart plug doesn’t communicate the “unreachable” status because I don’t see a variable that can do that. I have different brands, and I tried “when current is lower than” (or voltage) but if the power goes off the plug stop communicating, so the “when” never activates
The flow that reads could be the solution, but I don’t know how to do. Would you please be so kind to point me to some literature to read or in the right direction to search?
Hello Dirk and thanks. I was convinced that this was not my first time here… but maybe I dreamed it. Or maybe it was a different account. Anyway I’ll check the welcome post and thanks.
The problem is not the Fibaro, it’s the Baseus charger. When there’s a power outage, the Baseus charger protects the connected devices by disabling itself and, in doing so, the button on top of it should be pushed manually if I want to turn on again the Baseus charger to power the devices connected to it (one of those it’s Yale Alarm).
With the switchbot I can push that button, but to automate everything I need some device (powered by the Baseus charger and connected to it) that I can “ping” (so I get “unreachable status”) or that has a card that activates in that instant when it goes offline because power is off
I sometimes get a bit frustrated users don’t read, or don’t answer questions of those trying to help
Sorry, but I don’t get why you refuse to supply all device info, like mentioning what wireless protocol the basus thing uses.
There ain’t even a Homey app for it
If there is, please provide for the link to Github / Bitbucket source.
So,
When it uses wifi: no app needed, just use Net Scan app to monitor the online status and act upon it with flows.
Zigbee / zwave: a device is regarded unreachable by Homey after a (very) long time. And afaik the time to consider it being unreachable, is not adjustable, unlike with zigbee2mqtt…
Hi Peter, we are not understanding each other or I cannot explain, I’ll try better. I DON’T want a Baseus app, I don’t even need it and of course I’m not looking for it because my Baseus charger is “stupid” and not connected to anything. It’s a GAN desktop charger with a button: when the power goes off, to activate it back (and to power the devices physically connected to the Schuko or to the USBs) someone must press the button.
So Baseus charger is not connected to Homey, no protocol, no radio, nothing. I’m “connecting” to Homey by using a physical Switchbot Bot that will press for me the button on top of the Baseus charger.
So I’m trying to create an automation that works like this:
-power goes off for an instant and then on
-the Baseus charger feels the power “blink” it and turns off itself. To turn it on someone must physically press the button on top of it
-Switchbot Bot can press the button for me and it’s already in my Homey Pro. I need some virtual trigger that tells Switchbot to press the button because the power “blinked” on and off
-the only way I can think is to connect some smart device to one of the Basues charger’s stupid ports (stupid because they are just Schuko plugs, or USB plugs, they don’t have any connection)
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Now I’ve understood the actual problem with the “Baseus charger”. Nevertheless, I would like to ask again which device, which devices are connected to the Baseus charger that communicate or are connected to Homey, because this is the basis for detecting that the/a device was not reachable anymore.
There is a Yale Smart Alarm App in the App Store, but it’s not compatible with HP23. Do you use this App with an older Homey Pro? Do you use Yale Smart in general with Homey? In the App Store are no information listed which protocol the devices use.
WLAN/LAN devices could be checked with the mentioned NetScan app.
I don’t think it could be a reliable solution because you’d have to test the status on a regular basis and the power might have blinked off, then on in that time however, it could work if the outage is long enough.
At the moment the online smart device connected to the Baseus is the Yale Alarm that is not supported neither by Yale Access nor by Yale Home apps on Homey Pro.
I don’t use the Smart Alarm with Homey because it’s not listed, I only have the Yale Lock and Cabinet (both supported by Homey Pro with Yale Home)
I have 2 Shucko left (and many USBs). To the Schuko I can connect a Meross MSS310 or a Fibaro (zwave) smart plug or even a Trust smart plug if it serves the purpose (but I have to search it, no info about the model until I find it)
Meanwhile I’ll download Netscan and see what I can do with that
Thanks for the flow, yes I guess that it would not work because these power outages I experience are more like “power blinks”, enough to activate the protection mechanism of the Baseus, but not enough to keep me without power for more than 1 second.
The UPS is a Bluetti Battery with Bluetooth to connect to the Bluetti smartphone app. But even if I could ping its Bluetooth, the Homey Pro + Bluetti is in a room very far from the Basus one
I also have a Legrand BTicino 310081 UPS, I don’t think it’s a connected one though
If you have a smart plug to spare and you can tell it to default to ‘Off’ when the power resumes, you could connect it to your power supply, switch it on and:
Perform a regular test to see if it’s off. If it is, you know a power failure occurred, and the power is back on
In that situation, activate your Switchbot (you might need to add a delay to allow things to settle down) and turn your smart plug back on.
If you don’t have any device connected to the Baseus Charger that is connect or can communicate with Homey, how should Homey recognize if there was a power supply problem?
Suggestion: Find a cheap and supported WLAN smart plug and check its WLAN connection with the NetScan app.
But the WLAN connection must be stable so that there are no false triggers!
However, I don’t know what happens if the WLAN router also fails briefly due to the power supply problem. Or is it also connected to a UPS?
