Web interface doesn't seem to reflect the state of themes

[fitzpatri8]

That sounds like the way the second version of the SmartLinc handled things. When you set up a scene, you could assign a scene a 'status' device, then the SmartLinc would show the status of the status device any time you refreshed the page. That works for 3-ways, but could easily mislead people about the status of more sophisticated scenes.

 

It's that disagreement about scene status expectations on more sophisticated scenes that gets us in trouble. Some believe scene status should reflect the 'average' dim level of a scene (that's how the MobiLinc app works), some say it should only display as 'On' if all the devices match the on/off/dim levels defined in the scene exactly, some say it should display as 'On' if *any* included devices are on, some say it should display as 'On' only so long as *all* devices in the scene remain on, etc. Some people want to be able to choose between these choices for different scenes.

 

So far, the best answer has been configuring the interface to reflect no scene status.

 

Personally, I'd like the web interface to support display of a variable next to the scene name. That way I could set up my own ISY program to define the current 'status' of each scene as it suits me. For some scenes, that status might be On, Bright or Dim (for an ordinary scene of dimmers); for a basement scene that might be "In Use" or "Off"; for whole-house scenes, that might be On, All On, All Off, or Mixed.

[stusviews]

This is only for scenes that simulate n-way switch circuits.  By definition, none of the devices is ever in more than one scene.  Think of it as a checkbox: either in the scene configuration: "device acts as an alias for this scene" or, maybe simpler, in the device configuration "device acts as an alias for scene" with the scene specified in a dropdown.

 

Any scene with more than one controller is a virtual n-way configuration, so you would do more checking than not, thus adding to the steps required. More importantly, adding a feature uses space. Including an unnecessary feature, for example, turning on a scene instead of a device is a waste of space.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi dmazan,

 

Thank you for the clarifications. I think I am getting to understand. One more questions:

"2. Same as if the scene is activated from the web interface. The scene is activated but the web interface doesn't show its status."

 

Just to be clear, you would want the actual scene to be activated if and only if the alias is controlled from the web interface. Is this correct? Something like the following:

If 'alias' is turned on then turn on the scene. If the alias is turned off, then turn off the scene. This way, the correct status for all the devices in the scene are reflected.

 

Is this correct?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[dmazan]

Exactly.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi dmazan,

 

Thanks so very much! Definitely doable with one very major caveat: I am quite concerned that this will cause All On events! Here's the link to the issue:

http://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=INSTEON_Random_All_On_Events

 

I am just thinking out loud here. Let's take the concept of the alias and modify it a little. What if - and only in the UDAjax - we made a modification such that the scene status (on/off) would be on if any of the controllers in the scene are NOT off? I will have to talk to Benoit, but since this approach - just like yours - does not have any impact on the backend, it might be easier to accomplish and without any adverse impact such as All On.

 

With kind regards,

Michel