FEATURE REQUEST: Button Controller App & Clone

I use quite a few 5 button Picos and programming them in BC is very repetitive and time consuming. Would be great if the BC app had a clone feature like RM.

Thanks!

You can make all Button Controller steps in RM.
There is the possibility that BC will be retired, since all of it may be handled in RM.
Try your hand at converting a rule - it's easier than you think!

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Yep, make one in RM4, then you can clone to your heart's content.

As the others have said, just use RM. In a new rule, select 'Button Device' as the trigger event, and then you will be presenting with the same multi-button selection UI that Button Controller uses. It's the same UI, but you get the power of more choices for the actions. And, you get the ability to clone.

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Thanks Bruce. Works for me.

As a hobby-ist, I have received the opposite advice on this forum to 'keep it simple' and use things like the Motion Lighting app and Simple Lighting app for their appropriate applications.

These 'official' apps are nice but it would also be nice to know if there is a reasonable chance of them being deprecated on the near horizon. Please excuse my ignorance if I have missed something as I try to stay plugged in and learning as the platform evolves.

Thanks again!

No, these will not be deprecated. We generally do not remove functionality. Sometimes, as in the case of Button Controller, the functionality gets supported in a slightly different way. Prior instances of all apps continue to work. For example, there are instances of Rule, Rule-2.5, Rule-3.0 that all still work and will continue to work. Likewise, there are old instances of Button Controller.

All of these will continue to work, we won't pull the plug on existing installed apps. What happens when we do move forward, is that you can no longer create a new instance of Rule-2.5, but all of the existing ones go on ad infinitum, and can still be edited as needed.

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@bravenel @jtmpush18, I use RM4 quite a bit though my rules are not very sophisticated. As I have just now begun to create a rule for a 5 button pico, I can't see past having one rule per button. Does that sound right?

Have you looked at 'Button device' as the trigger event? That allows you to have one rule with actions for each button.

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How about an example:


Very simple, Eira button controller (In RM4)
One button to turn on, one to turn off, one button to increase by 20% and one button to dim by 20%.
Eazy, peazy.

Perfection

My favorite part about having button controller in RM is the ability to use button devices with conditional actions

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Nice.

Geez, have had a hard enough time w/ waf given that holding a button too long does something different than a simple push.

Considering Mode-based levels, which would be nice, so long as an override is in place... like a Held Button 1 takes you straight to 100%.

I learned that with my wife there should be no buttons with Held functionality at all. For one, she doesn't remember what does what, and fumbling about with undesired outcomes is not good waf. I have two Picos that only I ever use, and those are loaded up with push/held. But for her I keep it simple and rememberable.

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Bruce, That makes sense but retraining almost always results in a reduction of waf.

I recently learned that my wife was expecting a certain result by holding button 2 on a 5 button Pico. The default Lutron behavior is a constant rise in Level. So, I have since reprogrammed that button to the 'Start Raising' command.

Also note that you can use Simple Lighting for these as well, which is what I did until I got a bit more comfortable with RM.

BTW, one difference that would be nice to address is "double-clicks". In simple lighting there's an option for that but I don't see that in RM.

whats this :wink:

You can select 'Button device' as the trigger event to get at all of the buttons of a multi-button device (as shown above in post from @BorrisTheCat) , or 'Button' to just get at one as shown below.

Well that's not how it's working for me. When I select my device as a "button device" for the trigger I get pushed, held, and released as options. When I create a rule using "button" using the same device I also get the doubleTap option as well. This is with the Hank 4 button switch using the Aeotech Nanomote driver, which is what the HE chose when I installed it.

sounds like something is missing in the driver @mike.maxwell is the guy for that

Ok. I've setup my first button device control rule in RM. It works great and does exactly what I want... which is to activate a light to a certain level with a custom CT which is compatible with the time of day. My custom CT comes from a global variable that's independently set/changed each time the mode changes.

But, before I move into copious duplication, wondering if anyone has advice for any better way to do this since 10 device changes are required for each newly duplicated Pico.

Any input appreciated. Thanks!