Configuration enhancement ideas

[JoryHogeveen]

Added this in a new topic to keep an overview.

Might be nice to have more parameter for configuration (I'd like to help here if possible!)

• RemoteID option per gang (manual input). This way one could search a working ID per gang for different types of remotes.
• Option to save all data to JSON so one could keep their settings locally in case he/she want's to update with an extra gang without the need if manually adding everything again.
• Option to overwrite BTN codes for scripts (per code)
  • Regular switches:
    • ON (scene)
    • OFF (scene)
    • TOGGLE (button number)
  • Dimmers: ( See Support dimmers #1 )
    • ON (scene)
    • OFF (scene)
    • TOGGLE (BTN 1 to 9)
    • DIM + (BTN 16=18)
    • DIM - (BTN 56=58)
    • DIM 25% (BTN 90=88)
    • DIM 50% (BTN 114=112)
    • DIM 75% (BTN 10=8)
    • Extra dim values? (through scenes)

I'd like to hear your thoughts!

[kind3r]

• RemoteID option per gang (manual input). This way one could search a working ID per gang for different types of remotes.

One feature of this project was to replace the whole searcing for a valid remote ID and generate random ones that work. So in principle finding the valid ID should be a priority. But I have nothing against manually setting your own ID.

• Option to save all data to JSON so one could keep their settings locally in case he/she want's to update with an extra gang without the need if manually adding everything again.

This should be easy and I've thought about this before just did not get the chance to implement it. All settings are actually saved in a JSON and stored in localStorage. So a download/upload option should be easy to implement.

• Option to overwrite BTN codes for scripts (per code)

Don't really see a point in doing that since they use different remotes. #2 happend because of the remote ID not the button (still have to check tho). Because you use scenes for ON and OFF and you only have 4 scenes per remote there is no reason to have multiple buttons on one remote assigned to different gangs.

• Dimmers: ( See Support dimmers #1 )

  • ON (scene)
  • OFF (scene)
  • TOGGLE (BTN 1 to 9)
  • DIM + (BTN 16=18)
  • DIM - (BTN 56=58)
  • DIM 25% (BTN 90=88)
  • DIM 50% (BTN 114=112)
  • DIM 75% (BTN 10=8)
  • Extra dim values? (through scenes)

Tricked me at first too, but the actual DIM buttons mentioned are the 4 scene buttons of the remote. So you could have ON, OFF and 2 other dim presets (on the same remote ID). Could go even further too and add another remote ID with 4 extra scenes. IMHO dimming is nice for the first 5 min or so. I have IKEA dimming and color changing lights and dimmed/color changed them a few times during the first month of usage.
Also, the DIM+ and DIM- seem to be on a different type of 4 button remote only, and 4 button remotes don't work with scenes. Which brings us back to the ideea of having 2 remotes per dimming gang.

[JoryHogeveen]

But I have nothing against manually setting your own ID.

Awesome, that would provide some options in creating all-off switches. Once a switch is learned a code from a remoteID it automatically recognizes the all-off switch as well. In my case the remote has 9 numeric buttons so that would mean I could trigger all-off for 9 switches at once.
This might be a nice feature to add manually (instead of a switch/gang, create an option to add a all-off action for a remoteID)

So a download/upload option should be easy to implement.

Ah perfect!

About the option to manually set the BTN code. This is so one could add other commands to a gang.
For example (dimmer again):

• ON (scene)
• OFF (scene)
• Toggle (btn)
• DIM + (btn)
• DIM - (btn)
• Scene X (a regular scene for multiple switches)
• Another btn of choice to do something..

These could be advanced options per gang for example.

Tricked me at first too, but the actual DIM buttons mentioned are the 4 scene buttons of the remote. So you could have ON, OFF and 2 other dim presets (on the same remote ID). Could go even further too and add another remote ID with 4 extra scenes. IMHO dimming is nice for the first 5 min or so. I have IKEA dimming and color changing lights and dimmed/color changed them a few times during the first month of usage.
Also, the DIM+ and DIM- seem to be on a different type of 4 button remote only, and 4 button remotes don't work with scenes. Which brings us back to the ideea of having 2 remotes per dimming gang.

Check, the DIM 25% code is indeed just a scene.
But the DIM+ and DIM- are dedicated numbers it seems (would be a new remoteID for each gang to work).
The remote I have doesn't have these buttons at all but only allows holding down a button to toggle dimming (up and down). See my comment: #2 (comment)

So indeed, 2 different remotes for dimmers would be the solution I guess.

[JoryHogeveen]

Concept idea of configuration enhancements. I understand that this would be a lot of work.
On the third card (custom action) I also added an "Action" parameter, I imagine this would influence the code generated for HA. Not sure if this is needed though as I do not know what options there are within HA.

For advanced options I pre-filled placeholders. For the dimmer I understand that there will be 2 remoteID's needed, not sure how to implement this clearly.

Another thing that might come in handy for debugging is adding the remoteID in the generated HA code as comment for each action (script). Maybe after the packet line, example:

  switch_1_gang_1_toggle:
    alias: Switch 1 gang 1 TOGGLE
    sequence:
      - service: broadlink.send
        data:
          host: !secret broadlink_ip
          packet:
            - sn8mABMGBgwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAYGDAYGDAYGBgYGBgAAAAAAAAAAAAA=
            # RemoteID: 32767
      - service: input_boolean.toggle
        data:
          entity_id: input_boolean.switch_1_gang_1

[JoryHogeveen]

To continue on this based on my findings in #1 one could say this might be a workable setup example:

Gangs:

• 3 dimmers
• 3 switches

Remotes:

• 1x VL-RMT-04 (toggle - global) - can learn max 9 gangs (btn 1 to 9)
• 3x VL-RMT-02 (dim)
• 6x VL-??? (on/off scenes)

Linking/learning:

• Each gang will have it's respective TOGGLE button from the VL-RMT-04 remote.
  This will allow the use of the All off button
• Each gang will have it's own remote for ON/OFF scenes
• Each dimmer gang will have it's own remote for DIM options (Toggle, Dim+ and Dim-)

This will result in the following codes:
Dimmers:

• Toggle (global remote)
• Scene remote:
  • ON scene
  • OFF scene
  • (optionally) Toggle (scene remote)
  • (optionally) Extra scenes for different DIM settings?
• DIM remote:
  • Toggle (required)
  • DIM+
  • DIM-
  • (optionally) OFF

Switch:

• Toggle (global remote)
• Scene remote:
  • ON scene
  • OFF scene
  • (optionally) Toggle (scene remote)

Global action

• An all-off code which functions as a kill switch for all gangs.

[kind3r]

I don't really understand the use of the global VL-RMT-04 remote. You can just have a group with all the lights (I think HA already does that automatically as lights.all_lights) and just issue service lights.turn_off on the group. Of course, this will switch off the gangs one by one, but will that make a difference ? I could also create an all_livolo_lights group in the config for a more granular aproach (I still have a couple of IKEA lights for instance, maybe I don't want to turn those off).

Also, I think before learning scenes on a remote you have to assing one of the remote buttons on the gang for TOGGLE (tbh, I did not try skiping this step and only learning the ON/OFF scenes).

Now, if you already have the VL-RMT-04 remote, you could pair it with your gangs and use it in paralel with HA, but, you would not have the correct state of the light in HA as there is no feedback from the switch when it turns on and off (same thing happens when you use the switch directly).
The VL-RMT-04 remote has 3 rooms, I guess that means it has 3 remote IDs for you to actually control 3 times the 9 buttons (just a guess).

Having a remote/custom action defined is a bit pointless imho, as you already have all the possible commands for the gangs defined as scripts and you can use them in HA as you see fit via automations, what more do you want to do with a custom action ?

[JoryHogeveen]

I don't really understand the use of the global VL-RMT-04 remote. You can just have a group with all the lights (I think HA already does that automatically as lights.all_lights) and just issue service lights.turn_off on the group. Of course, this will switch off the gangs one by one, but will that make a difference ? I could also create an all_livolo_lights group in the config for a more granular aproach (I still have a couple of IKEA lights for instance, maybe I don't want to turn those off).

Fair enought, this is indeed a bit pointless for HA.

Also, I think before learning scenes on a remote you have to assing one of the remote buttons on the gang for TOGGLE (tbh, I did not try skiping this step and only learning the ON/OFF scenes).

You can assign scenes without assigning the TOGGLE button so the TOGGLE is not required at all.

The VL-RMT-04 remote has 3 rooms, I guess that means it has 3 remote IDs for you to actually control 3 times the 9 buttons (just a guess).

Correct!

Having a remote/custom action defined is a bit pointless imho, as you already have all the possible commands for the gangs defined as scripts and you can use them in HA as you see fit via automations, what more do you want to do with a custom action ?

Custom actions could be handy to create custom scenes. Then again, you can do that in HA so yeah, for HA this is pointless.

[JoryHogeveen]

Hi @kind3r
Just saw that you already implemented the save/load configuration option, awesome!
One question though (related to the above).
The reason I've thought about manual overwrites is so that you can set your remote ID's as fixed in your configuration files so that when you need to add an extra lamp it won't create a whole new set of RF codes for you to learn to your switches. The chance is a bit small, I know, but the code could have changed on how you fetch remote ID's. By fixing them in the configuration file (not just the singe global remote ID) you could prevent this from happening.
Let me know your thoughts!

[JoryHogeveen]

Hi @kind3r

The reason I've thought about manual overwrites is so that you can set your remote ID's as fixed in your configuration files so that when you need to add an extra lamp it won't create a whole new set of RF codes for you to learn to your switches.

Just had this issue. If you re-import the old JSON config code it resets all RF codes and you'll need to re-learn all your switches.
Why not store the remoteID for each remote you used for the gauges.
It's a simple change and you can still auto-generate a remoteID for configs that do not have these set but if the remoteID is already set you can re-use that one.
Maybe even allow manual overwrites for gauges?