Lock Refresh

[Randy]

I'm gonna submit a ticket to support

[Randy]

Thanks very much for the help. Even though it's not working I know I was/am on the right path. I am completely green and am feeling my way through all of this.

[mkig45]

Whatever you do don’t get those sensitive sensors. I bought 6 of them a year ago because I liked the idea of the 10 year battery life. 5 of the 6 stopped working completely and the 6th one constantly drops in and out. I just went with the new SmartThings door sensors and they have worked well the last 4 months.

[brianwilson]

So are your locks not locking/unlocking on the first command to them? I have this issue and have a rule that checks if they are locked only if I’m going away or sleep (ie only works if I have a trigger event and I want to do all locks, thus unlocking doesn’t work).

My problem is a zwave/Schlage issue which I’m still working with support on. I’m the meantime, I have determined the only way to remedy without really fixing it in Hubitat and have individual lock verification is a combo virtual lock driver for each lock and an app to keep states in sync and retry the locks if action wasn’t taken. This is required because when I’m sending a lock/unlock event, it doesn’t go through, so there’s no trigger or any action to key off of, thus the use of a virtual driver to always take the action and act until success on the real driver.

It’s pretty bad that I have had to come to this, but I’m giving support some more time to help me work though my setup (everything was ok on ST). If you think this would be helpful, I’ll share it. It’s not great and I worry about race conditions, but my testing appears ok (not actually using it though) and I’m sure sharing would help work out the bugs.

[jwetzel1492]

lol must be a common problem because I ended up in the same spot because my Kwikset locks weren't sending back status updates. Wrote a virtual lock driver (I call it Reliable Lock) that "wraps" around the real lock driver. When it receives a command to lock or unlock the door, it forwards it to the real lock, waits a few seconds, then does a refresh. Then I expose the "Reliable Lock" to Alexa and HomeBridge.

I haven't documented it as well as my other apps/drivers yet, but if anyone wants it, the code is here:

joelwetzel/Hubitat-Reliable-Locks

[brianwilson]

Very cool. Does it also get updates on the status of the real lock? That was a challenge.

[Dustyd5]

@Randy

air about which sensor to get

I just hit eBay and bought some Iris gen2 contact sensors from people. They seem as bulletproof as the Gen1 are. But don't buy them all. I need some more for my other two properties

[jwetzel1492]

Yes it does. The trick was that in addition to the virtual lock driver, it also requires an app, because only an app can subscribe to the real lock's events.

[jwetzel1492]

I don't have time to write up full instructions right now, but basically:

• Install the driver
• Install the two apps (master and child apps)
• Create an app instance and bind it to a real lock. The app will create the virtual device for you.

[Randy]

I am totally interested in this but do not understand anything you are saying here. First of all, will this work with my locks not just Kwikset locks?

[brianwilson]

It’s a virtual driver that calls the native locks driver, so it should work for any lock. You then use the virtual device to lock/unlock vs your original device name.

[Dustyd5]

@Randy

I am totally interested in this but do not understand anything you are saying here.

I'm with you! I don't "get" it yet but it sounds good. In the mean time I made a rule such as shown above to "refresh" my lock every two hours. I'll see if that helps keep the dashboard tile functional and reporting proper state. Will report in tomorrow...

[Dustyd5]

@Dustyd5

I'll see if that helps keep the dashboard tile functional and reporting proper state. Will report in tomorrow...

Almost a day later... the tile is still "fresh" and the lock is still reporting correct state. So far, so good. On the other hand, i wrote a similar rule to try to get my thermostat to behave, and it hasn't helped at all. But so far, so good with the lock!

[jwetzel1492]

Ok, I have published latest code, installation instructions, and started a thread. Hope this helps!

[Release] Reliable Locks

Reliable Locks app for Hubitat An app that will create virtual locks that 'wrap' your physical lock devices, making them more reliable. Purpose Some smart locks are not reliable about reporting their status changes. For example, my Kwikset z-wave locks will sometimes accept a lock command from Hubitat, lock themselves, but never report the 'locked' state back to Hubitat. This app 'wraps' the locks inside a virtual lock that tries to make them more reliable. Then you expose the virtual re…

[jwetzel1492]

Double-check how you pasted it in. Line 47 of the driver only has a closing curly brace, so my guess is that you might be pasting in more of the contents of the github page, and not just the code?

[Randy]

I missed your updated post with instructions that even I can comprehend. I just installed Reliable Locks and it works a charm! Thank you for creating this and taking the time to spell out the installation process. It not only solved my issue but by doing this I have a better understanding of several aspects of HE and codes/drivers moving forward. You have made my day!

[jwetzel1492]

Excellent!

[Randy]

Can i change the auto- refresh rate to 1 hour in the child app by simply changing the 30 to 60 on lines 37 and 91 ?

[jwetzel1492]

Yes, changing runEvery30Minutes to runEvery60Minutes will work.

[Dustyd5]

Reporting back a week later. My simple 'refresh command seems to work OK with my front door lock, but it is not working with my back door lock. Looks like I'm going to take the plunge into installing OPC: Other People's Code Am going to try jwetzel's "Reliable Locks"!

UPDATE: That didn't help. Because my lock is simply gone from the network. It doesn't respond to the device page either... sigh.