Anyone able to explain how preference manager works?
Not sure if your post is about Hub Protection Service (as the title states--and the answer is "we don't know" 
) or Preference Manager (as the apparently edited post states, so I'll assume that). Preference Manager is just a way to set device preferences using an app instead of going into each device and doing the same thing. You can do use it one of two ways, which are the two options presented when you open the app: edit all the preferences for devices that use a specific driver (shows all preferences from that driver and lets you select specific devices or all devices to apply your chosen settings to), or edit all preferences devices that expose a preference with the same name (technically what the developer chose to name the internal "variable" that stores the setting, not necessarily correlated with the display name of the setting; again these can be all devices or just ones you select).
It's sort of a niche use, but if you want to change the same setting to the same value on a bunch of devices, it might save you time. If you don't see a use for it, that's totally fine, too: it's nothing you can't do in the device page itself. Just a different way to get the same result.
3 Likes
Thank you. looks like i had a draft in there i never finished.
Thank your for response. Do you know how the changes you make propagate out? If i change a set of devices, does it immediately begin processing those changes one device at a time? Does it only send out preference that i indicate or does it send every a device an exact copy of the complete parameters? (if i dont change as parameter via preference manager, does it send the default out to all the devices, or does it let the device retain its existing setting for that paramter?)
I have 50 inovelli dimmers, and i did a hub migration. The ramp and dimmer rates are all messed up. But the single load vs mult-temp setting has been call fixed. If i send out a fix for the ramp and dimmer rate to all, will it leave the switch mode alone?
I haven't explicitly tested this, but if you don't choose an option--i.e., if it's left at "Click to set" (unselected) in the UI--I doubt it would send anything to that device for that preference. I'd be surprised any other way but don't have the confidence of having tested this in any measurable way to verify. I'd feel pretty confident changing just the two settings for the Inovelli that you mentioned, but if you want to be cautious, you could start by choosing just one device and see if it does what you want--then try it again and choose the rest.
You will have to hit "Update Preference Now" in the app for the changes to begin applying, so it's not "immediate" in the sense that it does something as soon as you choose a preference in the app UI. If you meant more specific than that, i.e., the order, we aren't privy to the internal workings of the app, but my assumption is that likely iterates over them in an arbitrary order one by one but would appear from the user perspective to be basically all at the same time (but the exact implementation details shouldn't matter in the real world; did you have a specific concern in mind?).
Thanks for your insight, I'll do some tests and post back here. Seems like something that could create a bunch of rework if not used correctly. Thanks again
Preference Manager only changes the preferences that you select, un selected settings are not sent.
Thank you
The idea is if you have a very large network, with preference manager you can set the same setting to a large number of devices. Say if you have a bunch of Inovelli dimmers which support setting a minimum and maximum dimmer level, so that you can still use 0-100 for dimmer levels and they are scaled between min and max, and you have a large number of these dimmers set with an LED light the only works between certain values, say 35-65 (65 -100 has no effect on brightness) then this app will let you set the min and max setting with one operation.
The app will cycle through all the devices that support that same settings and make the setting change.
Imaging your dimmers have programmable LED color status lights.. and they default to blue, but you want to set them all to violet, you can use this app to reconfigure all of them with one action.
Sure, there are always other ways, but this is a generic way to perform a bulk settings update.
I spent some time with this, and it works exactly as advertised. I would say i found this too late! I did a hub migration to a C7 via bob's instruction of 50 inovelli dimmers. The instructions work. The DNI stays intact, and your rules aren't broken. But all the preferences have to be redone as they are reset when you exclude them from the old hub. It is made worse as HE thinks the devices still have the preference you set, but they don't. So you actually have to push a change to something else, and then push it right back to what you want. i did this manually for all 50....then found this. We need to link this thread over to the hub migration thread.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
