SmartThings Multi Sensor on a Cat Flap - Help!

(Jonathan Rider) #1

Hi everyone,

I’ve spent the past few days trying to get a multi sensor to work on my cat flap, but not simply returning ‘open’ and ‘close’ states. I’m not having any luck getting it to work, I’ve tried putting bits of code together from existing DTHs, including garage sensors, but I just can’t get a solution that works.

Basically, I want to do the following:

  • Place the multi-sensor on the cat flap door, on the inside near the top - I’m not using the magnetic strip, just the main ‘big bit’.
  • If the sensor is in a particular position, the status is reported as ‘closed’.
  • If the flap opens in one direction, so the threeaxis value is within very specific limits (to be determined once it works!) the status changes to ‘Going out’ or something similar.
  • If the flap opens in the opposite direction, the status is ‘Coming in’ or something similar.

That way, I can see whether the cat has gone out or not, rather than just being able to tell that the flap has been opened, in one direction or the other.

My first issue is that the threeaxis values aren’t updating when I’m using the ‘SmartSense Garage Door Multi’ DTH. Then I need to be able to determine the threeaxis values that the DTH uses to report whether the flap is closed, going out or coming in.

Can anybody help me? I’ve tried changing the code on the SmartSense Garage Door Multi DTH but I’m not getting anywhere!

Thanks

Jonathan

#3

@Jonathan_Rider You could achieve this by using webCore. I am doing a similar thing with a garden gate. I use a variable and set it to true when first acceleration is detected and then set it to false when second acceleration is detected. Then give a displayed readout on the dashboard and in a push notification as to the status. E.g. If the variable is false and the cat flap goes Active. The variable will be set to true. If the variable is true and the cat flap goes Active then the variable will be set to false. Then you can have all sorts of reactions based on if the variable is true or false.

You could have a push notification or txt message letting you know if the cat is in or out.
Or you could display a message on the dashboard etc

(Pizzinini) #4

I second that… WebCore lets you trigger events based on changes in the the x/y/z axis values of the sensor.

(Jonathan Rider) #5

Thanks, everyone.

Having had another look on the forums, I think that my sensor is broken, which is why the values aren’t updating! I’ve got another one, so will test this first.

webCoRE looks perfect, I’ll give it a look tonight and see if I can get it to work.

(Jonathan Rider) #6

I’ve set this up with webCoRE and it works perfectly, thanks for the advice!

I don’t know how I haven’t seen it before, it does lots of the things I need to do and have had to find a way around.