[Solved] Problem with decreasing/increasing values. Rule not always executed.

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Pimatic folks,

I have built an automated watering solution (based on a Gardena watering computer, combined with a yoctopuce relais and a raspberry) for my balcony.

I am using the DummyHeatingThermostat-class for setting the watering time:

 {
      "class": "DummyHeatingThermostat",
      "id": "wateringTime",
      "name": "Bewässerungsdauer in Minuten:",
      "guiShowModeControl": false,
      "guiShowPresetControl": false
    }

Giving this nice device:

Now I have a rule to be called whenever the watering time is changed. This rule calls a SetWateringTime.sh-shell script with the wateringtime as a parameter.

if [$wateringTime.temperatureSetpoint is decreasing] or [$wateringTime.temperatureSetpoint is increasing]

then

execute "/home/DerIng/scripts/Pimatic/SetWateringTime.sh $wateringTime.temperatureSetpoint"

Problem:

When changing the device value for the watering time the shell script is not called everytime!
No matter how long you wait in between before changing the value - it’s just a matter of “luck”!

The exact same behaviour exists when using the DummyDimmer-class for e.g. volume control of an mpd-daemon.

So it’s not related to the DummyHeatingThermostat-class only!

Example device:

 {
      "class": "DummyDimmer",
      "id": "radio-volume",
      "name": "Radio Volume"
    }

Example rule:

if [$radio-volume.dimlevel is decreasing] or [$radio-volume.dimlevel is increasing]

then

execute "/usr/bin/mpc volume $radio-volume.dimlevel"

So any help is welcome to solve this issue.

Many thanks in advance,

DerIng

The x is decreasing and x is increasing predicates only fire if the increasing or decreasing behavior changes. So for example, if the inital value is 0 and you change it to 5 x is increasing fires. But if you further increase it to 10 nothing happends, because the value is still increasing.

You can either use x increased and x decreased, which fires on every increase and decrease. Or you can use changes which fires every time the value changes:

if $wateringTime.temperatureSetpoint chenges
then execute "/home/DerIng/scripts/Pimatic/SetWateringTime.sh $wateringTime.temperatureSetpoint"

The semantics should be documentated better. If you can read code you can study the behaviour here: https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic/blob/42c9fe37da26bf785846d12f08be52f30456400f/lib/predicates.coffee#L699-L728

sweetpi,

again: Thanks for the solution. Was not aware of this way using the changes syntax.

Now it’s working 100%!

Thanks,

Dering