How to use Orbit Hose Water Timer with the dashboard?

šŸ§° Built-In Apps and Drivers Dashboard
1

I have an Orbit Hose Water Timer and so far it seems to be working well, just testing the unit before actually installing it on the hose.

I would like to check the status and control it via the Dashboard in addition to scheduling it through an app I wrote.

I selected Valve for the tile but no icon shows up:

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When I click on it, the log shows an error:

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The device shows valve as being open or closed:

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2

Thanks for reporting. Will see if we can reproduce and then should be able to fix for next point release.

3

this is fixed in 1.1.1

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4

The error in the log is gone:

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Not sure what the 1150 with the close means.

But the valve is staying closed when I click the tile. I tried closing the valve through its device page and that worked. Is there anything else I can look at and send on?

Also, will there be an icon for the valve eventually? I don't color the tiles for state changes, I prefer the icon colors to change, so I can't tell the current state of the valve from the tile.

5

Just out of curiousity, does the door tile template work? Essentially all this is doing is sending the close() command to the device selected, both templates do the same thing.

What's unusual is the secondary parameter 1150. That shouldn't be there. Try turning on logging on the Orbit and see if it logs an error on the dashboard close event.

6

Thanks for the additional troubleshooting steps! Here is what my dashboard looks like with the valve and door tiles for the Orbit and a door tile for a contact sensor:

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So I get an icon with the contact sensor, but not with the Orbit.

Then looking at the debug log for the Orbit (no errors being reported there), the same command is being sent to the Orbit from the valve tile and the door tile. Then finally the lightbulb moment: the tile is always sending a close, and the valve is already closed when I test. So I opened the valve on the device page, then clicking on the tile does close the valve. I thought it would do a toggle.

So the problem appears to be that the tile doesn't know if the valve is open or closed so always sends a close. I don't understand why the contact sensor appears to work differently than the valve in that it shows an icon with the status; when the door is closed the icon is gray, when the door is open the icon is green.

7

Interesting. can you send me via pm your devices json from the side menu, little "i" bottom right? I'm curious if it is not sending the initial state on dashboard load.

8

I don't know if it's just the generally crappy quality of the orbit hose timer, but I stopped getting reports from it, and it stopped responding to commands, about an hour after I set it up. Any suggestions?

9

Has there been any more development on this. I have gotten my orbit to pair and I can turn It off and on but I canā€™t figure out how to schedule stuff.

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11

Thank you so just write the rules. Is the driver for this open Iā€™d like to see whatā€™s under the hood?

12

Yup just write the rules. I have no clue about the driver.

13

I'm looking for this timer. Has anyone got a link for it on Amazon?

14

Your best bet is probably eBay, since this is an Iris product:

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15

Is it normal for the device to show schedule on ?

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16

Looking for answer to this also. I have one that says off and one that says on

17

I have my orbit timers as "outlet" in the dashboard and no issue so far for months now.

18

I wondered about that also... @mike.maxwell ?

19

@chuck.schwer wrote this driver, I don't have any operational expierence with it.

20

Yes, it is supposed to report on/off/unknown for when the device has been scheduled, but it does not affect the actual running of the device at all.