Why are we being forced to have Double Tap, Push, Hold and Release commands in 2.2.6?

[jtp10181]

@steve.maddigan

I did have RMs that digitally pushed button on switches and his driver broke that behaviour. He asked me at that time why I would ever do that (lol)

Why? From my POV it’s nice to define behaviour in one spot. If I define a button controller action to do something and I want a RM to mimic that behaviour then just point to the button. Yes scenes is another option but a little overkill for defining most button behaviour.

Well it does seem some people find it useful, and I believe steve is even someone I recognize as a user of my drivers. So I guess I will add it to the drivers for an update soon.

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@mike.maxwell

most, but not all button controllers are sensors only (ie they only generate, and cannot accept commands)

Sorry off topic but I found info in a very old post and was not sure if it was still relevant. When should the "Sensor" and "Actuator" capabilities be included in a driver? I feel like it would only be needed if you don't have other capabilities defined, but if I am using "Switch" already should it still have Actuator as well?

Reason I am asking is because it seemed to be effecting the way the devices got reported to Alexa (see this post): Amazon Echo Skill not working with devices using capability "RelaySwitch" - #3 by jtp10181

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@tony.fleisher

@jtp10181

but I believe I need the capability in there for the RM and button controller apps to allow the associated events (pushed, held, released) to be attached to rules (correct me if wrong).

If I am understanding correctly, I do not think that this is correct (it hasn't been in the past for other capabilities). Your driver can raise events for attributes (e.g. as a result of parsing incoming messages) independent of which command methods it implements.

I think the only way they show up in the button controller section is if you have the capability defined. You can see in this example doubleTap does not show up, but on another device where it is defined (but has never been used) it will show up in this list.