Anyone using the Battery Monitoring app from the applications list successfully?

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

Hi All,

I downloaded and installed the battery monitoring application from the list of available applications and I can’t seem to get it to work. I am running a Vera Lite UI7 with firmware version 1.7.760

From playing with it I understand that you can add all your battery powered devices to a list so you can monitor them all from one place and you can set it up to send you alerts if the battery for monitored devices drops below xx%. I really like the idea, but can’t seem to get it to work.

I’ve installed the application and it shows up as a device called Battery Monitor. I’ve gone into the applications Click on > Arrow → Devices → Rescan, which brings up a list of Z-Wave devices, added my front door lock and clicked save. It responds with all changes saved. When I click on the battery level it shows nothing and if I go back into devices my front door lock is no longer listed under the monitored devices.

I’ve searched the forum and can’t find any reference to the app and the help option opens a window to what appears to be a non-functioning website.

I’ve attached screen shots if that helps.

Thanks

Gordon

#2

I like this question! I like it because it clearly explains what you have, what you’ve done and the results.

Did you reload the Vera engine? If you did and it still isn’t showing up , you’ll have to switch to manual.

#3

I just have alerts set in each device to send me a notification when below 25%. My door locks, smoke detectors and other devices already have the send notification when low option in the alerts. I don’t go threw and check them daily so I don’t need a visual. Just a notification every year would be good.

#4

** UPDATED THIS POST 4 POSTS DOWN **

I got it to work and I have the same setup as you do.

I realized that I over looked a couple of steps, so I have updated the procedure.

Record the device numbers of the devices you want to monitor and their battery levels. Write them down or commit to memory.

The “ADD” device in the Battery Monitor “Devices” section does not do it’s job properly so go into Battery Monitor Advanced>Variables and look for the MonitoredDeviceList field.

In that field add the device numbers you want to monitor separated by a comma. I only had two, so it was 6,7 and then click outside the field and the variable will be saved.

Now enter the device numbers followed by a comma the same way defendant on their respective battery level values in HighDeviceList, LowDeviceList, MidDeviceList.

After clicking outside the field and saved the variable, click the new service tab and then click Reload Engine.

Go to Dashboard>Devices>Battery Monitor>Battery Level and the devices should be in the Low - Medium - High lists accordingly.

Give it awhile, it needs to do one monitor auto update and everything should be fine. My batteries are at 100% so I’ll have to see if they move from High to Middle to Low.

#5

Thanks Additude. I will give that a try. I had some issues with my network and had to restore from a previous backup, so when I get things back to where they were before the restore I’ll give it a go and let you know.

Thanks

Gordon

#6

** UPDATED THIS POST 1 POST DOWN **

Well actually that turned out to be just the beginning of it for me. I wasn’t getting the battery monitor to give me any updates, etc. or nothing. So, I moved one of the battery devices over to low battery level in the variables by putting it’s device number there (It showed 100% in the “Low” section and even though I setup a scene to run the luup check code to run manually, it would not move from low to high:

luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:BatteryMonitor1", "Check",{}, 72 )

*NOTE - Change the "72" to the device # of your battery device

But eventually I got it to work. Use this process to test that it does work by forcing a device into a low battery condition and then running battery monitor check to verify that battery monitor is working properly:

Set up a scene to run either manually or on a schedule (I do every hour) and have the scene run this luup code above (change the last numbers to your battery device).

You can verify using this procedure once you have added your devices as in the previous post to the variables HighDevice and Monitored form fields.

Change the battery level to “30” in the variables on one of your battery devices that is being monitored. The battery will show this level for awhile, depending on the device. When you see the battery level of the device at 30%, then run the battery check scene manually. Then go into the battery monitor and check battery level. You should see that device that you just set to level 30 in the “low” section of the battery level section of the battery monitor.

So recap of what you are trying to do is:

  1. Setup the luup code in a scene that forces a battery monitor check
  2. Set one of your battery devices that you had manually entered into the battery monitor (following the previous post) to level 30 in the variables section of that device
  3. Verify that the device shows a battery level of 30% and then run the battery monitor level check scene from step #1
  4. Go to battery monitor → battery level and see that the battery check from step #3 put the device you set to 30 in step #2 in the “low” section
  5. Now you can do the process again by putting the device back to 100 and running the battery check, it should return it to the High section in Battery Level

If the device is not there in the low section of the battery monitor verify that the device is still reporting level 30 and that it is being monitored by Battery Monitor. It’s in Battery Devices.

You can also try using battery monitor-> Advanced-> New Service-> Reload Engine. Using this sometimes puts everything at it basic start default state. Then begin testing.

My problem with Battery Monitor not working has still plagued me for days, even before my first post, until yesterday when I started working on the code. I finally ended up on the Intermediate XML page and from there I tried working the code around, understanding the sequences, changing things, testing, trying to look for results. I changed a lot of things, changed them back. I tried to tidy up the code, etc. and then what seemed out of nowhere, it just seemed to start working.

So first, try these steps above and see if that works for you.

Report back here and let me (us) know the results.

#7

OK, Well I spent some time today and fixed the reason that the Battery app would not save the devices from the ADD screen

I am uploading a copy of the changed files. You just need to Apps>Develop Apps>Luup Files and click the Upload Button, find the two files and upload them.

The first thing you need to do I create a scene that you can manually execute the following Battery Check Luup Code.

luup.call_action("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:BatteryMonitor1", "Check",{}, 22 )

Be sure to use your own Battery Monitor Device number for where I have 22

Once you have created the manual scene, go to Battery Monitor>Devices and before you do anything, refresh your browser.

When your browser returns, you can go back into Battery Monitor>Devices and ADD then save the devices you want to monitor.

As soon after you save the changes you made, go to scenes and run the Battery Check Luup Code.

When you come back to view the Battery Monitor, everything will be as it should be showing Monitored and Unmonitored Devices.

Now go to scenes and edit the manual Battery Check to a schedule of your liking. I use 60 minutes because I think when I change old batteries to new batteries then everything will update accordingly…but that is also dependent on your device polling.

#8

Thank you. Your instructions and updated files seem to work great…

#9

Thanks for the feedback… Good to hear that everything works for ya…

#10

@additude

Thank you. This works for my four units with UI7; however, it would be nice if the list of unmonitored devices presented for selection were limited to only those with batteries. That is the way the Battery Monitor plugin v0.7 currently works on my three units with UI5.

#11

[quote=“BrianLBeaton, post:10, topic:190910”]@additude

Thank you. This works for my four units with UI7; however, it would be nice if the list of unmonitored devices presented for selection were limited to only those with batteries. That is the way the Battery Monitor plugin v0.7 currently works on my three units with UI5.[/quote]

OK, I saw that all devices were populating, but being unfamiliar with how this app previously worked, I thought that was kosher for to populate all the devices under “Unmonitored Devices”.

I’ll take a gander at the code and see if that is what the code is trying to do (just view battery devices) but that it’s broken or if that’s the way it is coded to work, see all the devices.

Thanks.

#12

Alright,

I finally had some time to look at it.

It’s updated. It will only display the devices that are battery operated.

Enjoy.

#13

[size=1em][font=trebuchet ms]Thank you for the update. This makes quick work out of selecting the battery-powered devices I want to monitor.[/font][/size]

#14

Yep… agreed.

I tried to get it to say something like “No Battery Devices Found” when there were indeed no battery devices found or if no “Un-Monitored” battery devices were left to monitor…ummm, meaning that all battery devices were being monitored, but it gets complicated inside that display window with device names, including the action of selecting and moving devices over to the “Monitored” side, so I just included a user display statement after the SAVE button was pressed.

I also reformatted the date to USA format… and did a few other minor changes.

#15

[quote=“additude, post:14, topic:190910”]Yep… agreed.

I tried to get it to say something like “No Battery Devices Found” when there were indeed no battery devices found or if no “Un-Monitored” battery devices were left to monitor…ummm, meaning that all battery devices were being monitored, but it gets complicated inside that display window with device names, including the action of selecting and moving devices over to the “Monitored” side, so I just included a user display statement after the SAVE button was pressed.

I also reformatted the date to USA format… and did a few other minor changes.[/quote]

Thanks for sorting the plugin out. Just installed it and followed your “ReadMe” file in the .zip and works exactly as it should. Shame the Fibaro sensors dont seem to report correctly and update their battery statuses

Thanks again
Nick

#16

@additude would it be possible to package this as a new app in the app store (Battery Monitor 2.0)? I’m new the vera and tried installing the app to find that it doesn’t work. I found this forum post and am happy to see there’s a solution, but am looking for ease of install/use.

#17

I just put a notification on each Battery device for when battery was < 15%.
I get a notification (via Vera Alerts text to speech) … when a devices batteries get low.

#18

just a heads up guys, with the newest firmware w/ my Plus, there in a new section under “Users & Account Info > Notifications Settings” there is now a simple checkbox to have Vera auto notify you when any battery devices need replacement soon (there are other auto alerts now too, check it out). Kinda makes all the stuff we’ve done in the past obsolete…

#19

Woo hoo!! UI7 FTW (bet i’m the first to say this ;D)

Thanks!!

#20

Hi Chris, I am not the author of the Battery Monitor app. I just made some updates to the app to make it useable.

So your question should probably be directed at the author of the app and if they want to include the changes that I made and update the app officially.

If you are having issues installing it, then I suggest you retry installing it and follow the instructions precisely. Delete any previous files from any attempts to install the battery monitor.

Wes