Better Laundry Monitor Port & Update

Developers
164

First off, I really like Laundry Monitor, it is both fun and practical.

I do have a question on one of its features.
Under "Inform", "Choose Additional Devices", "Which Switches" I selected a light bulb in the kitchen (for test purposes) and found that when the dryer started it would turn the light off and when the dryer stopped it would turn the light back on.

This is the opposite of what I expected but perhaps I'm in the wrong mindset. Can someone clarify, is this the intended mode of operation or a bug.

Thanks.

165

Hmmm .. something is backwards somewhere. It works as you (and I) expect for me. I have a virtual switch "Washer Running" that comes on when cycle starts, and off when complete.

166

Perhaps having the light on when the load is complete is to indicate that you now need to action something, i.e. go and deal with the washing? Perhaps the app simply toggles the light? Does it do nothing when the load starts if the light is already off?

167

The code is clear enough... especially if you have debugging on...

  if (debugOutput) log.debug "Cycle started."
  if(switchList) { switchList*.on() }

  	if (debugOutput) log.debug "Cycle finished."
  	if(switchList) { switchList*.off() }

Switches selected are turned on when the Cycle starts and off when the Cycle finishes. You should be able to follow along in your Live Logs.

I have a virtual switch that I send over HubConnect to where my Dashboards are and display it...

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 1.33.17 PM

There's no Wash running, and the last message was an Off.

The Dashboard tiles tell the same story.. no Power draw (0.00) and the virtual switches are Off.

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 1.36.34 PM

168

That is what I was expecting to happen and I was using a Virtual Switch and getting the inverse results. So I used a light bulb instead and ran it again. As you can see it switched off first and then switched on at the end.

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Must be something funky in my scheme. I'll take a closer look and do some logging when Laundry day next comes around.

@csteele Thanks for the response. Now I know what the intended outcome is I'm sure I can solve it.

169

That was a good thought but as the author stated in should follow the state of the device, On when running, Off when stopped.

170

Oh well, was worth checking...

171

Anyway to add any other way to reset this,
Say like when motion is preset in laundry room it reset?

172

So do the open close sensors need to be left open in order to stop notifications?

173

Just to let anyone who is using a some other device for notifications, such a light bulb. The Smart Laundry Monitor changes the state of the device to "off" when the washer\dryer is running and then to "on" when they are considered to have stopped. The choice of state was not intuitive to me and I thought others might hit the same issue and wonder why.

BTW I use the Alexa Virtual Switch to open\close a virtual contact sensor which is visible to Alexa. I then have an Alexa routine which does an announcement about the Washer\Dryer stopping or starting. I used this because I don't have a device for announcements and Echo Speaks was not reliable enough and overkill for my simple needs.

Thanks to the authors for this code. It is one of the most "fun" things in my Hubitat world.

174

What would the recommendation be to turn the additional devices / switches on (instead of the existing behavior which turns them off)?

I am running a duct fan that I want to be on when the dryer is pulling power, then turn off when the dryer cycle is complete.

175

@csteele so for my use case all I need to do is turn debugging on?

176

Just use RM to 'track' the (virtual) switch selected in BLM (Better Laundry Monitor) and do what you need based on it's state.

The logic inside BLM is to turn off the list of switches proactively, once a week. Then, with each 'Cycle started" the list of switches are turned On. With each 'Cycle ended' the switches are turned off.

I have mine using a virtual switch and it's event logs show what I expect:

Screen Shot 2020-12-02 at 7.11.32 AM
Screen Shot 2020-12-02 at 7.11.32 AM932Ɨ83 7.5 KB

177

Still not working as I hoped. I created a virtual switch called Dryer BLM Notification, then added that virtual switch to the Dryer child App on the inform switches line. (I also get the notification "Dryer started" on my Pixel phone.
I then created a RM4.0 IF based on Dryer BLM change:
image
I get the notification of "Dryer Started" and the duct fan turns on as expected. But I am not getting a final "Dryer Complete" notification.
My settings for the Aeotec HD Smart Switch (Power Meter) are to report every 30 seconds and the Dryer child app threshold settings are 11 start, 4 stop 2 intervals. I've also tried it at 11/10/2...

Thanks!

178

Look at the Events list for your Aeotec HD Smart Switch (Power Meter). Grab one cycle's worth.. put it into a spreadsheet or just graph it out on the back of a napkin.. watch what it DOES, then make the Threshold settings match.

For me, I found the device did not repeat zero power. I'd see Zero multiple times but then followed by greater than... so I added the feature for the 'Deadman timer" to provide an equivalent to the 2nd Zero report. If there are no reports for X minutes, call it done... you may be running into something similar, and the graph will make that clear.

Screen Shot 2020-12-03 at 10.17.47 AM

179

@csteele thanks for the work you have done. I am using a Power meter and for some reason once in a while I get a spike in power then the cycle starts and finishes a couple minutes after. Is there a way to prevent this?

Also I have added a virtual switch to prevent Alexa from announcing but when I add the switch it blocks all speech no matter the state of the switch. Have you seen this before?

180

Graphed it out:
image
You're right, no double zero. Using deadman of 40 min, but as you can see from this example it ran faster than 40.

181

Thanks for this! BLM was one of my favorite apps/automations from SmartThings. Now if I can just get the darn Sonos integration to detect my speakers, I can get the announcement.

182

At one level, BLM is combining things to intuit a Laundry Cycle. It's not too dissimilar to Presence sensing where you combine 2-3 phenomena to identify when someone is home, or not. In BLM, adding a Deadman is a combination that really enhances the experience, I think. Well.. it does for ME :slight_smile:

183

I can not figure out why this washer monitor isn't send a notification.

Here are the power thresholds:

image
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And here is the power graph from the cycle:

image
image773Ɨ514 47.7 KB

I am not sure what I am doing wrong here.