How to make user configurable start and stop times in pimatic?

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I’m struggling on how to make changeable start and stop times on the GUI for a user.
What I want : there is a device that needs to start on a certain time of the dat and stop on a certain time of the day. I want to change these start and stop times on the GUI.
There are several ways to accomplish this, but none seem to work very well, or are to crude to put an a GUI. For my specific situation there is less need to be specific on minutes, working with round hours is doable. But perhaps more users are looking for this option ?

Approach 1 : Add DummySwitches for every round hours
Not very clean. I would need to add 48 dummy switches on the system and in the GUI. 24 for start hour and 24 for stop hour.
Also this would need 48 rules to check if the current hour matches the switch for that hour to start or stop.

Approach 2 : Work with ButtonsDevice
With ButtonsDevice I could make up/down buttons for the start and stop time. So far I’m not sure how to make this work. This would nee 2 variables for creating on ‘time’ : the hour and the minute. Not sure how create a rule to take $varHour and $varMinute and put them in a expression variable (explanation : you can create a variable with a expression containing a time in hh:mm format. This var can be used in rule to trigger time. But I can’t update this expression build from the hour and minute variable).

Approach 3 : Work with seconds since 00:00
Create a variable for the starttime, in seconds (counting from the start of the day). A start time of 08:00 would be 28800 seconds. Display this variable as time unit. Use DummyShutter to increase the time. Every push up or down would kick a rule adding blocks of 10 minutes (to avoid extremely extreme clicking on the buttons.
Perhaps I could break the hours and minutes with separate shutter device, one for the hours and one for the minutes. Every plus or min for the hours would raise/lower the HourSeconds with 3600 and the minutes with 60. Add both values into a new variable. Use that variable in rules (if it is $StartTime seconds THEN …)

Approach 4 : Make formfield for user to enter text
At this point there is no function for a user changeable formfield to enter time. Someone should make this as a plugin, including errorhandling

For now, approach 3 seems to be the best option.
If anyone can help with this problem to see how to solve my puzzle? Would be appreciated

if you have taskter, you can use this for your problem.

http://www.filedropper.com/startstoptsk

i tested it and it works good, you just link your task to a shortcut on your phone, or link it to an other profile.

it ask for start and stoptime, after that it send it to pimatic and you can to a rule,

just add two variables to pimatic, $startzeit and $stopzeit

if it is after $startzeit and before $stopzeit then log "it works"

have fun

http://forum.pimatic.org/topic/97/feature-free-text

its a request.

calculating with times formated variable would be also nice.

Sorry, tasker is not an option.

Testing with the option to use a variable with seconds, seems to be the best way for now.

Damn … was creating all the devices and rules, only to find out you can’t use a variable in “… seconds after” in a rule

Create the following variables :
StartHourSeconds
StartMinuteSeconds
StartTotalSeconds as expression : ($StartHourSeconds+$StartMinuteSeconds)
StartHuman

StopHourSeconds
StopMinuteSeconds
StopTotalSeconds as expression : ($StopHourSeconds+$StopMinuteSeconds)
StopHuman

Display $StartTotalSeconds and $StopTotalSeconds on the GUI as unit time
Create 4 buttons for start : hour+ , hour , minute+ , minute-
Create 4 buttons for stop : hour+ , hour , minute+ , minute-

Create rules to add or subtract 3600 for the hours and 60 for the minutes
Create rules to prevent the total of seconds to be more than 86340 seconds (24 hours) or lower than zero (in either case, reset the seconds to zero).
Create a rule to format $StartHuman en $StopHuman:

$StartTotalSeconds changes and $StartMinuteSeconds >= 600 THEN $StartHuman = "'{$StartHourSeconds/3600}:{$StartMinuteSeconds/60}'"
$StartTotalSeconds changes and $StartMinuteSeconds < 600 THEN $StartHuman = "'{$StartHourSeconds/3600}:0{$StartMinuteSeconds/60}'"

You need to rules to add a prefix 0 when minutes is under 10.

Finally create a rule to work with the time :

IF it is $StartHuman THEN do some stuff

@koffienl Is it somehow possible to show Starthuman an stophuman in the GUI. I tried several things, but I didn’t succeed up to now.
The setting of these variable through the rules and using time in other rules works great, but I would like tot see the “human” values in the GUI too.

https://pimatic.org/pages/config/

VariablesDevice should do the job

@thex Thnx for the quick response, but already tried it. My current config (tried a lot of different things )

{
  "id": "vv-vars2",
  "name": "VV tijden",
  "class": "VariablesDevice",
  "variables": [
    {
      "name": "vv tijd aan",
      "expression": "$vv-tijd-aan",
      "type": "number"
    },
    {
      "name": "vv tijd uit",
      "expression": "$vv-tijd-uit",
      "type": "number"
    }
  ]
},

$vv-tijd-aan has a value of 6:00, $vv-tijd-uit has a value of 22:00. In the GUI NaN is only visable.

Try to use type string. Also sorry a VariablesInputDevice would make more sense as you want to change the values

@thex That did the trick. Silly, that I didn’t try this before. Just to be sure: Does this have any effect on the rules?

Should not, they were strings anyway

Ok, it’s working. Thanks for the hints. I now have a user changeble day time and a user changeable night time in the GUI for my floorheating. The times are changable through a set of buttons. It’s done like koffienl explained, but I use only two buttons per time variable and change it by intervals of 15 minutes up or down.
Code for the Vars:

{
  "id": "vv-vars2",
  "name": "VV tijden",
  "class": "VariablesDevice",
  "variables": [
    {
      "name": "vv tijd dag",
      "expression": "$vv-tijd-aan",
      "type": "string"
    },
    {
      "name": "vv tijd nacht",
      "expression": "$vv-tijd-uit",
      "type": "string"
    }
  ]
},

code for the buttons:

{
  "id": "vv-knoppen2",
  "name": "VV tijd instellen",
  "class": "ButtonsDevice",
  "buttons": [
    {
      "id": "vvhtp",
      "text": "vv dag tijd +"
    },
    {
      "id": "vvhtm",
      "text": "vv dag tijd -"
    },
    {
      "id": "vvltp",
      "text": "vv nacht tijd +"
    },
    {
      "id": "vvltm",
      "text": "vv nacht tijd -"
    }
  ]
},

Code for the rules:

{
  "id": "vv-aan-tijd-omhoog",
  "name": "vv aan tijd omhoog",
  "rule": "if vv dag tijd + is pressed and $startminsec < 2700 then $startminsec = $startminsec + 900",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-aan-tijd-omhoog-2",
  "name": "vv aan tijd omhoog 2",
  "rule": "if vv dag tijd + is pressed and $startminsec >= 2700 then $startminsec = 0 and $startuursec = $startuursec + 3600",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-uur-aan-hoger-dan-24",
  "name": "vv uur aan hoger dan 24",
  "rule": "if $startuursec changes and $startuursec >= 86400 then $startuursec = 0",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-aan-tijd-omlaag",
  "name": "vv aan tijd omlaag",
  "rule": "if vv dag tijd - is pressed and $startminsec >= 900 then $startminsec = $startminsec - 900",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-aan-tijd-omlaag-2",
  "name": "vv aan tijd omlaag 2",
  "rule": "if vv dag tijd - is pressed and $startminsec < 900 then $startminsec = 2700 and $startuursec = $startuursec-3600",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-uur-aan-lager-dan-0",
  "name": "vv uur aan lager dan 0",
  "rule": "if $startuursec changes and $startuursec < 0 then $startuursec = 86400-3600",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "start-tijd-vv-wijzigt",
  "name": "vv tijd aan wijzigt",
  "rule": "if $starttotsec changes and $startminsec >= 600 then $vv-tijd-aan = \"{$startuursec/3600}:{$startminsec/60}\"",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "start-tijd-vv-wijzigt-2",
  "name": "vv tijd aan wijzigt 2",
  "rule": "if $starttotsec changes and $startminsec < 600 then $vv-tijd-aan = \"{$startuursec/3600}:0{$startminsec/60}\"",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-uit-tijd-omhoog",
  "name": "vv uit tijd omhoog",
  "rule": "if vv nacht tijd + is pressed and $stopminsec < 2700 then $stopminsec = $stopminsec + 900",
  "active": true,
  "logging": false
},
{
  "id": "vv-uit-tijd-omhoog-2",
  "name": "vv uit tijd omhoog 2",
  "rule": "if vv nacht tijd + is pressed and $stopminsec >= 2700 then $stopminsec = 0 and $stopuursec = $stopuursec + 3600",
  "active": true,
  "logging": false
},
{
  "id": "vv-uur-uit-hoger-dan-24",
  "name": "vv uur uit hoger dan 24",
  "rule": "if $stopuursec changes and $stopuursec >= 86400 then $stopuursec = 0",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "vv-uit-tijd-omlaag",
  "name": "vv uit tijd omlaag",
  "rule": "if vv nacht tijd - is pressed and $stopminsec >= 900 then $stopminsec = $stopminsec - 900",
  "active": true,
  "logging": false
},
{
  "id": "vv-uit-tijd-omlaag-2",
  "name": "vv uit tijd omlaag 2",
  "rule": "if vv nacht tijd - is pressed and $stopminsec < 900 then $stopminsec = 2700 and $stopuursec = $stopuursec - 3600",
  "active": true,
  "logging": false
},
{
  "id": "vv-uur-uit-lager-dan-0",
  "name": "vv uur uit lager dan 0",
  "rule": "if $stopuursec changes and $stopuursec < 0 then $stopuursec = 86400-3600",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "stop-tijd-vv-wijzigt",
  "name": "stop tijd vv wijzigt",
  "rule": "if $stoptotsec changes and $stopminsec >= 600 then $vv-tijd-uit = \"{$stopuursec/3600}:{$stopminsec/60}\"",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
},
{
  "id": "stop-tijd-vv-wijzigt-2",
  "name": "stop tijd vv wijzigt 2",
  "rule": "if $stoptotsec changes and $stopminsec < 600 then $vv-tijd-uit = \"{$stopuursec/3600}:0{$stopminsec/60}\"",
  "active": true,
  "logging": true
}

Maby this can be done more efficient, but for me it’s working now…