I have set up the following piston. I initially had the 1st part only (detecting presence) which seemed to work. I decided to create a new piston to add the condition if the door is open for more than 10 minutes it should close.
When the “Else-if” reports “True” the door does not close. However if I press the “Simulate” button, the door closes.
Please help.
Just as a note related to what you’re doing, I’ve seen several cautions here from users about using presence detection to manage locking/opening doors and things like that - folks have noted that they have been woken up by doors unlocking when they are home in bed (ST thinking they have just arrived).
You could have your garage open when you were away (false positive arrival/presense) and worse, garage close when your car/bike/neighbor is near it.
I am not an expert. What if you did this in a basic piston with two groups separated by a or (or as an or if piston).
If
{Door is Open and presence changes to not present}
Or
{Door is open and door did not change in last ten minutes}
Then
Using garage door close
Send notification
It also feels like you could use a wait 10 mins on the door in the second bit.
So do you want the second condition to happen no matter what the state of presence?
That’s correct
I’m only wanting to use it to close the door. To avoid driving off and leaving the door open. Or just keeping it open
Change your Else-If to a But-If statement. A But-If is handled as two seperate evaluations.
Drop DID NOT CHANGE in the last 10 Minutes from you evaluation condition.
Add WAIT it 10 minutes to the Then Statement.
Also Set TCP to Cancel on State and Condition Change.
Adding the TCP option will cancel the 10 minute wait if someone leaves or Door cahnges to closed. Hope this helps.
Thanks for your response @logeox.
I don’t see a “But-If” option. Only And, Or, Then, Else. Just want to make sure I select the correct one.
Sorry, Change from a Basic Piston to a Latching Piston.
Thanks. Where do I find the TCP option? (I’m new to this)
Within the THEN section at the bottom of your action (advanced Options). There are two options TOS (set by default to Local) and TCP (set to none by Default).
If its not there, then you will need to turn on Expert Mode in Core Settings.
Got it (TCP - Task Cancellation Policy) Thanks.
Adding the TCP option caused the door to want to close immediately.
After much trial and error this is what I’ve landed up with and it works.
Drop: Door stays open for 10 Minutes from you evaluation condition.
Add to the Then Statement:
WAIT 10 minutes
Close
Send Push
What happens is the door opens and a 10 minutes timer starts.
If nothing changes in 10 minutes it closes and sends a push notification.
If you leave before the 10 minutes then the top part of the piston shuts the door and cancels the timer.
You will need TCP condition on both sections of the piston.
FWIW,
I’m using the original presence tags in both my car and my wife’s car. They both work very well when coming home and open the garage without issue. There’s also NEVER, EVER been a time when they opened the garage when I wasn’t home.
What does happen, rarely, is that the tag will “wander” away even though the car is parked in the garage. The tags use low powered radios to preserve battery life and sometimes they can lose communication with the hub. I noticed it happens a lot more in cold weather.
You can minimize this by setting a “time out” threshold. Set it up so that you need to be gone x-number of minutes before the the system considers you really gone. If you leave and come back before that threshold hits, then it doesn’t open any doors.
Right, @chrisb, I’m sure that there are people using presence/sensors to manage their garage doors that have had few or no issues. I just think it’s important to call out that there have been issues reported by some users of false presence reporting, and folks should take that into account when setting up routines to auto-close and auto-open doors based on presence.
Totally agree… just wanted to throw more info out there.
