pimatic rf commands with alexa?

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Hi,

I just received an Amazon Echo Plus. While I was against buying an echo device for quite a while, I changed my mind when I realized there was a pimatic plugin for it

I installed said plugin and set it up. Linking devices to Alexa works. For example echo, turn on tv turns on my tv and echo, turn off tv turns it off. So far, so good. However, I have several devices in my living room which I’d like to use as a group in Alexa and control them with one command (for example echo, turn off living room ough to turn off the tv, my couch lights and my window sill lights).
[explanation: the Alexa app allows me to group several devices to certain rooms; I can tell Alexa which devices are in my living room and automatically control them all by just mentioning the group name instead of addressing each one separately]

However, this does not even work when manually doing it in pimatic. I have to wait for a few seconds before issuing each command that works via rf. I usually wait at least 3 seconds, otherwise it might or might not work.

This is my setup:

device alexa-tv ==> DummySwitch with echo plugin
device remote-tv ==> actual rf switch for that 433 outlet my tv is connected to
rule rule-alexa-tv-on ==> when alexa-tv is turned on, then turn off remote-tv
rule rule-alexa-tv-off ==> when alexa-tv is turned off, then turn on remote-tv
this is not a mistake; since my 433 devices send the off command when I turn them on and vice versa, this is how I have to do this

I considered changing all these rules to something like
when $dummy-deviceis turned on, then turn off $actual-device and wait 3 seconds.

However, there is no wait or pause or delay command when setting up rules.

How do you guys do this? The way I figure it should work is that any time more than one 433 device is triggered, there should be a short pause before the next rf command can be sent; however, when I press several switches at once (or they are all automatically switched via an Alexa command), they ought to know that each time this pause has to be held.

btw, this is how I set up my rf devices; maybe I made a mistake there already?

Any help is greatly appreciated! I love using pimatic and it would be so much more convenient using Alexa as a front end so I can control anything even without my smartphone present.

Thanks in advance

Had the same with pimatic rf. Switched to USB connected homeduino and i can switch everything at the same time without a problem. Think it has to do with the ip connection. Every command has to be acknowledged by the nodemcu with pimatic rf?

and after 3 seconds....

@Patrick-Nooijen
This worked perfectly, thank you

(well, setting up a new homeduino device was a pain… but from then on everything seems to be fine)

@Michael-Rudek
can I just put and after 3 seconds at the end of the command? or will it require an argument to be given after seconds? (can’t try this myself atm because i am not in my home network)

The .... are for a following command
then turn device1 on and after 3 seconds turn device2 on

A time based command at the end would´t be:
then turn device1 on for 3 seconds
Means it is switched on and after 3 seconds switched off

But as I know you have to consider that the following times have to be the sum of the before used timeouts.

after 3 seconds... after 6 seconds... after 9 seconds...

Ok, I solved it this way:
when alexa-x2x45a is turned on then turn off x2x45a and after 1 second log "Ben Licht AN"

This way, there is a forced pause, but an argument is given (which apparently needs to be done).

These rule work for each device. So when I control just one single device, it is not noticeable. However, when several devices are switched, this one second pause gives enough time for the 433mhz transmitter to “recover” (now that I have my homeduino connected to my pi instead of via pimaticRF, one second seems to be enough)