My husband put together a nifty little drip irrigation system for some of our indoor plants that uses a fountain pump and microtubing out of a bucket reservoir. I’ve been using a Zwave switch to turn it on for 3 minutes in the morning and 3 in the evening for... well, almost a year now. Worked well on the Wink, where I had an extra layer of “off” commands in case the first off command didn’t go through.
When I ported everything to Hubitat, I decided to live on the wild side and see if a simple automation rule for the morning and a simple automation rule for the evening would do, without the extra “off” commands.
Worked well for a week, and then tonight it didn’t turn off, and I had a little overflow to clean up lol. Thankfully it’s not on carpet.
So, I created two more simple automations with the singular purposes of sending one more “off” command to be safe, one in the morning and one in the evening. I also created a notification that should nag me every 5 minutes on my phone if it’s been running longer than expected.
Is this a good way to ensure our little hobby garden doesn’t flood? Is there a better way to ensure that a Zwave device goes on and off as scheduled? There wasn’t anything in the logs, but I also didn’t have debugging on for that device. I do now.
So you're already reading power on this little pump? I'd make a rule that would send off commands if power usage any of the two stretches of time that the pump is supposed to be off.
Instead of creating multiple rules on the same rule engine. Create one with Simple Automation and one with Rule Machine. I do this with a magnetic lock for my storage. Been working fine for 2 years now.
Oh that's a good idea. It didn't turn off again this morning even with the extra Simple Automations... but I did get the notification that it was on. Looking at the logs, it got like... 12 "on" commands and zero "off" commands. Weird.
I turned it off on the device and it didn't report back to the Hubitat as off, either. Maybe I need a Zwave repeater between the hub and this plug.
Edit: Been working great since adding the Rule Machine rule! Hopefully that'll do it! Thanks.
No, it's plugged into a normal, non power reading Zwave outlet (a switch). The notification just tells me if the switch hasn't been turned off after a few minutes. Although swapping that out for a power-reading device would give me more metrics to look for...
I suppose a leak sensor would be a good idea, although I'm not entirely sure where I'd put it. The lines are going to a bunch of pots both on a shelf with a drip tray and around the shelf with individual pot liners!
Maybe start where you had to mop up the most? But I did also think that a leak sensor on a flat floor is going to have some times when it is ineffective due to puddles forming randomly.
I've not had good luck with power monitoring on very low-draw devices using my older zigbee devices. But I also haven't worked on it very much.
