While defining an RM rule for the purpose of setting home occupancy – based on the timing of various sensors, inputs and delays – I tried my hand at using "Capability: Button" ► Push ► any button as a Trigger.
No such thing exists, evidently. I seem to be able to react only to a particular button (1-4) and keypress type (tap, held, 2x, release). This means, to capture each physical interaction with my SoftRemote, I would have to define no fewer than 4, and possibly 12, distinct triggers.
Whereas, if Button ► Button: (any) ► Press: (any) were permitted in RM rules natively, then I'd only have to define a single line.
Thoughts? FYI, not having installed any user apps to handle button activity – such as Advanced Button Controller (ABC) – it's unclear whether such functionality already exists elsewhere.
You could use a custom trigger. The attributes you're looking for would be at least pushed and possibly doubleTapped and held (probably don't need released since you won't get it without something else)--all as *changed*. That being said, I'm not sure what your ultimate goal is, so if you zoom out and state that instead, perhaps there's a more elegant way for all of this.
1 Like
You can do this with a Custom Attribute trigger. Select pushed as the attribute, and changed as the value. That will fire for any button pushed. What @bertabcd1234 said....
1 Like
Excellent input, which I will take to heart. The end goal of my machinations is to react to any physical interaction with my 4-button SoftRemote, to set a Virtual Presence Sensor as "Arrived" (meaning, "I'm at home") for later use in other workflows.
Based on your suggestions, I can at least whittle down the required number of lines to 3, which is acceptable for my purposes, though I somehow doubt these triggers will capture instances of the same button being activated (in the same manner) twice or more times in succession. (FYI, back on Vera, we had the ability to sense "Updates" which allowed you to react to repeated identical states. There was even a timestamp accessible through device attributes, which I don't believe RM can access on HE.)
Always looking to streamline my rules whenever possible, the underlying impetus for this Feature Request.
It should if the buttons driver is implemented correctly, i.e., overriding the default platform behavior and specifying that successive events with the same value (for the same attribute) are indeed state changes. This would affect any app if not, not just Rule Machine.
1 Like
