TexMike

@Michel Kohanim any update. I'm particularly looking for something lightweight and easy to manage on multiple phones. UDI Mobile looked perfect, if it only worked:-)

Also see thread below, @Michel Kohanim said they are looking at alternatives.

Portal geofencing app for Android.

My arriving home program checks to see if it's after sunset and then sets all lighting to my normal occupied status. I haven't seen a problem, but I see your point. Do you know if a wait will still cause the program (not the folder) to reevaluate the if away = 1 and stop running? If it does then I may be dodging the bullet since my vacation lighting is full of waits.

Second the suggestion to have Alexa run a program, I call mine "leaving home" I have a 5 minute delay with Alexa announcing a countdown every minute. Then I set the away variable to 1 and check to make sure all the doors and garage door are closed. It's a nice piece of mind, I can't be more than 5 minutes away if someone (kids) left something open.

As suggested, I have a vacation folder that only runs when the vacation variable is 1. One thing to be careful of, you still need the if vacation = 1 in each program in addition to any other logic. My normal sunset lighting program checks to make sure vacation and away are 0. Using sunset and random waits as in the example is very effective at making the house look occupied. I also send myself messages if any motion or doors are opened while away, turn on lights and have Alexa scream "intruder alert". My arriving home program sets away and vacation back to 0. I'm still using x-10 too, figured I'd make use of all the gear I had. I used all my x-10 on one side (phase) of the house and did the rest with z-wave. Welcome and enjoy the journey.

Good idea, now at least the spokens make sense. Thanks

I was probably overthinking it, the Z-wave traffic is occuring anyway and updating 3 variables is a trivial load on the ISY. I was just thinking that updating hundreds of times a day just so I could occasionally ask for the temp and humidity was not very efficient in general terms, but I probably should just not worry about it. The only time I maxed out my 994izw was preparing for the holidays. I made a deal with my wife that instead of hanging and removing Christmas lights I would put Z-wave RGB bulbs in the front porch and coach lights. I envisioned dancing red and green lights, but found that setting RGB color via Z-wave takes about 5 seconds per bulb, so I had to go to 1 minute changes to keep the ISY from being busy all the time. I'm sure most HA enthusiasts have experienced the spousal eye roll many times, but her reaction when I asked Google assistant "what is the brightness of the driveway temperature" and get the response "the driveway temperature is set to 60% brightness" and telling her that means it's 60 outside was unforgettable. Then I pushed too far and tried to tell her our HA is so powerful I can change the outdoor temperature "set the driveway temperature to 70" and of course it appears to comply, at least until the next update:-) Wife walks away shaking her head...

@Michel Kohanim Can you check with @OneClicktoControl to see what I may be doing wrong. I was hoping to avoid managing tasker on wife and kids phones and this seemed like a great solution, but it's just not working unless the app is opened and and a manual report location issued. Thanks, Mike

It works, instead of constantly updating the state variables, I'm taking another route for now. I say "turn on driveway sensor update" to populate the three state variables and then I can ask for the brightness of the driveway temp/humidity/luminance and get the correct values reported. If I find I use it often, I'll go back to updating the variables on every reported change from the sensor. It's actually the same program, the if just checks to see if the current reported values are different from the variables. I pretty much knew this method would work, but it's a bit convoluted so I thought I would ask to see if there was a better way to handle multi-channel devices.

The sensor updates when it changes temp by 1 degree, humidity by 5% and I forget the exact value for luminance, maybe 5%. The thresholds can be configured. By reducing overhead I mean not needing a program to update three state variables every time the values exceed the threshold and get updated. I guess my question could be simplified to - Is it possible to get a Z-wave multichannel devices values through the portal via a spoken? Perhaps I should have posted this in the portal section since the same question would apply to Alexa. I also shouldn't have used the word "query", what I meant is to ask Google assistant or Alexa to report the temp or humidity via a spoken. The sensor is battery operated so doing a Z-wave query while it's asleep is ineffective.

@bmercier can you chime in on this when you get a chance? Perhaps I should have posted in the Portal section since the same question applies to Alexa.

I have a Z-wave multisensor (Temp, Humidity, Luminance) mounted outdoors and I would like to be able query the values via spoken. Is there a way to do this directly? The only workaround I can think of is to have a program update state variables for each of the three values whenever they change, then I can ask the "brightness" of the state variable. Is there another way without all the overhead? Thanks, Mike

Need to set up geofence for 4 phones and wanted a simple solution versus needing to manage tasker on 4 phones, so gave UDI Mobile a try. Initial results looked promising, but background notification is unreliable. I see notifications on the bottom of my phone that no network is available, which is not true, I'm either on WiFi or mobile data all the time. If I open the UDI mobile app and manually report device status it will update correctly, but all 4 phones do not background update reliably. Settings (I'm editor) Distance 1, Time 10, Geofence 300 meters Phones 2 Moto X4 and 1 Original Pixel all running Pie, 1 Nexus 5X running Oreo. @OneClicktoControl ideas? Thanks, Mike

I noticed the same error starting weeks ago without any configuration changes. However, I'm still able to add new spokens and can control devices from the app and spokens, so I've been ignoring it. My spokens work almost all the time, I get the occasional "looks like this device isn't set up yet", wait a few minutes and it works.

When testing you can also manually set the state variable value from the Admin Console. Great new functionality, Thanks