Sorry to revive this old thread, but I just received my pwerbot and am trying to setup a piston in WebCoRE, to begin vacuuming when my wife and I leave, but with a twist:
When we leave our Blink cameras arm. What Id like to do is:
Wait 1 hour after we leave, disable blink motion sensing, start the robot.
Once it stops to re-dock and recharge, arm the Blink Cameras
When it begins cleaning again, disable Blink Motion
Finally when its complete with the cleaning, arm the Blink motion sensors.
Iâm still looking for an answer to fix my PowerBot since SmartThings has failed to do so in the 9+ months since I submitted my support ticket. I donât even think they are trying. So, I have no problem reviving this old thread.
As far as the arming and disarming, I donât know how the Blink cameras work, but Iâm doing that same thing with Smart Home Monitor, WebCoRE, and IFTTT. I have multiple pistons that monitor for when I or my roommate come home. This involves multiple global variables, but the main one is SomebodyIsHome. I have the robot on a MWF schedule. When it starts, IFTTT signals to a WebCoRE URL which runs a piston. That piston looks to see if SomebodyIsHome is true. If so, it leaves SHM alone because itâll either be set to disarm or arm (home). If SomebodyIsHome is false then it changes SHM to arm (home). When it stops vacuuming, it does basically the same thing. If SomebodyIsHome is true then it leaves SHM alone. If it is false, it changes SHM to arm (away).
Well I dumbed down the piston to verify the command to start the bot, actually started it. It does. Its currently running its course through my main floor and has only triggered one motion sensor (not the cameras). Now I will spend time finessing the piston to do exactly what I want, since I know it wont trigger my cameras.
Id like to figure out how to disable the other motion sensors (Im sure its easy, but I havent looked yet), send a notification to my wife so she knows its working, and when its done, enable the motion sensors and send a message to my wife so she knows its finished.
The only issue I have is that it wouldnt connect to my network using my Google Pixel and the smarthome app. I had to add it to my Samsung Account via my Fire HD tablet. Now in my Google Pixel SH app, its showing âdisconnectedâ, but ST sees it, no problem. Not sure why the platform mattersâŠor why it doesnt show âconnectedâ across the devices.
Hopefully your issue gets resolved. I mean, it uses port 8888, right? Did you set a static IP on it for a FW rule? Do you have a DMZ?
All of my IOT devices are on the same network so there isnât a firewall between them. SmartThings immediately tried to blame that when they found out I had one but then they eventually admitted the two are supposed to talk directly together. The vacuum works without issue, though I had significant problems getting it to connect to my wireless at first. I had to connect it to a hotspot first, get it added to my account, reconfigure it for my wifi and then interrupt it before it went all the way through the process.
SmartThings has given up on even trying to see if it works. Honestly, I donât think they every even tried based on the responses I was getting back.
Regarding the motion sensors, youâll want more than basic logic to enable and disable your sensors because youâll want to go to armed stay while vacuuming and back to armed away when nobody is home, but if someone is home and itâs set to disarm, you donât want it to switch to armed stay, then you donât want it to also switch to armed away when it finishes. Iâve got several pistons and variables to handle âpresence statusâ between my roommate and I. It takes some designing to get it right.
Iâve given up also. The integration is a joke. ST has said before that the integration is not easy to work with, but they should also come out and just say it doesnât work versus saying nothing.
Just found out Google Home has native support for Powerbot. I can now not only turn on/off the vacuum, but I can tell it to pause, resume, and recharge/dock. Pretty neat and I donât have to go thru ST for voice control.
what is the command to get it to start? i have tried numerous different things. I am just looking to use a piston to run the vac 3 days a week IF both presence sensors are not present . But i canât seem to get the vacuum to do anything. I see it in ST. I see it in the samsung connect app⊠I can tell alexa to run it. But canât figure out the right wording to get it started from the piston.
just in case someone else needs the info. The commands to get the vacuum to run and then to return are below.
this is the piston i use to run the vacuum during a specific time and only if we both are not home.
