Detecting when Dryer is finished (Energy consumption below 5W for 30 seconds)

Hey,
I want to be notified when my Dryer is finished by using an energy monitor. I have tried the following without success :

[1] Set a condition to notify once the dryer is below 3Watt usage for a period of 60 seconds. Problem : It does not automatically “Untrip”. Manually untripping just leads to a notification.

[2] Add a condition before [1] which triggers once the dryer has gone over 100watt for 3 seconds. Problem both cannot be true at the same time.

I am looking for a solution or for an answer to the following, how can I make the condition of reaching 100 watt a requirement before the condition that falls below 3Watts can trip?

Can someone help ?

I have similar situations where I want my reactor to only be tripped for a very short time
To do this I use a bit from a ?multiswitch? which is another handy app to download.

Say for example on the multi switch you use bit 1 and call it dryer complete.

Within your reactor condition you would add your conditions
[1] dryer power goes less than 3watts for 60seconds AND
[2] multiswith bit 1 status - dryer complete is OFF

Then in the reactor activities I add a trip action to set the multiswitch bit 1 dryer complete status to ON. So when the reactor condition become TRUE the multiswitch turns ON indicating the dryer has completed. You can then send yourself a notification that your dryer is done.

Then comes the question how do you turn off the multiswitch dryer is complete status.
I would create another reactor to make the status go OFF next time the dryer runs. For example
[1] dryer power goes greater than 100watts for 60seconds
Activity of this reactor is then to set the multiswitch bit 1 status - dryer is complete to OFF.

So in summary, have 2x reators.
1x to turn a status signal saying dryer is complete and send you a notification.
1x to reset the status signal once the dryer is turned on again.

But… on further thought, my suggestion is very complicated - but does work for me in certain scenarios.

However, if you just want to be notified every time your dryer goes less that 3W for 60 seconds, the beauty about reactor that it only trips once on each condition.

So, if you had only 1x reactor and had the condition as you stated = [1] Dryer goes below 3Watt for 60 seconds, then in the activities tab run a vera scene to notify you the dryer has completed.

What would happen is:

  • The dryer goes on watts >3Watts this reactor would untrip
  • When finished ie ,3Watts, reactor would trip, You get a notification
  • Reactor remains tripped because still <3Watts - but this is fine as you’ve already recevied the notification, no harm leaving the reactor tripped
    *Next time you run the dryer, usage goes above 3W, reactor untrips and cycle continues

No multi-switches or virtual switches are needed, actually (and that’s often true).

The simplest version of this is to have a single ReactorSensor with the simple test “dryer watts < 3” (it doesn’t need a “sustained for” option, but you can do it that way). This ReactorSensor will trip when energy use goes below 3 watts. It will not continue to signal this fact again and again while the dryer sits there not running. That’s not how Reactor works. Once it goes below 3 watts, the sensor stays in tripped state and won’t change (untrip) until that condition becomes untrue. As it sits there staying tripped, nothing else happens, because the events tied to it only fire when the tripped/untripped state changes. And because of this, you don’t need to sequence operations as you might in PLEG–you don’t need to test that it’s running before you test that it isn’t to see the “edge” you care about–Reactor is all about the edge by definition. So, the dryer is running or its not. If it were me doing it, I’d look at the energy use when it’s running in “no heat” mode and set my threshold somewhat below that. Say, for example, it runs on 70 watts without heat, I’d set the condition for watts < 50, just to avoid any spurious changes.

You don’t need virtual switches or multi-switches because you can set a notification directly on a ReactorSensor (Notifications tab, just like most devices). ReactorSensors implement the behaviors of a door/window/motion sensor, and so any action you can do with one of those sensors, you can do with a ReactorSensor. And in pretty much every case, that also means anything you can do by having Reactor change the state of a virtual/multi-switch you can more simply do with the ReactorSensor directly, and adding virtual/multi-switches just adds a piece of pipe to the plumbing to give you information you already have and can respond to. It’s redundant. This also means you don’t need a scene to do the notification–you can put the notification directly on the ReactorSensor. It’s tidier that way, too.

Thank you all, I will give it a try and report back.

I have currently the diffculty that none of the conditions and changes that I made are saved. The device is default each time I access the settings. Tried deleting, re-creating and rebooting, nothing did help. Any suggestions ?

[quote=“MarcoMomsen, post:5, topic:200445”]Thank you all, I will give it a try and report back.

I have currently the diffculty that none of the conditions and changes that I made are saved. The device is default each time I access the settings. Tried deleting, re-creating and rebooting, nothing did help. Any suggestions ?[/quote]

OK, so assuming you’re hitting the “Save” button on the way out (sorry, I have to say it), try doing both a Luup reload and a full reload/cache-flush of your browser. This is often necessary after creating new devices.

To reload Luup: I like to just go to Apps > Develop apps > Test Luup code and type in [tt]luup.reload()[/tt] and hit GO. Then wait. It takes a minute or two, depending on the size of your configuration and type of controller.

To hard-reload the browser: CTRL-F5 for Chrome/Windows, SHIFT-F5 for Firefox/Windows. I’m not a Mac guy, but usually something like CMD+SHIFT+R seems to work.

Thank you, everything works as intented, no need for microswitch. Key is to understand you don’t need to manually/automatically “untrip”

[quote=“rigpapa, post:6, topic:200445”][quote=“MarcoMomsen, post:5, topic:200445”]Thank you all, I will give it a try and report back.

I have currently the diffculty that none of the conditions and changes that I made are saved. The device is default each time I access the settings. Tried deleting, re-creating and rebooting, nothing did help. Any suggestions ?[/quote]

OK, so assuming you’re hitting the “Save” button on the way out (sorry, I have to say it), try doing both a Luup reload and a full reload/cache-flush of your browser. This is often necessary after creating new devices.

To reload Luup: I like to just go to Apps > Develop apps > Test Luup code and type in [tt]luup.reload()[/tt] and hit GO. Then wait. It takes a minute or two, depending on the size of your configuration and type of controller.

To hard-reload the browser: CTRL-F5 for Chrome/Windows, SHIFT-F5 for Firefox/Windows. I’m not a Mac guy, but usually something like CMD+SHIFT+R seems to work.[/quote]

When I need to restart LUUP, I often do that within a PLEG device. Perhaps a similar option within Reactor?

Hi all,

I have set up a working reactor (it trips and untrips exactly the way I want) for dryer/washer status reporting that is very similar to what was described in this thread. The issue I have is that I would not get that notification I created under Status/Notifications. Also, I have tried another way by setting up a manual scene where it sends me a notification when it’s executed. I have the reactor run that “notification scene” each time the reactor untrips (it trips when the Dryer is on). Even though the reactor trips and untrips exactly when I wanted, the scene would not run. When I run the “notification scene” manually, it sends me the notification as expected. So the scene works.

I imagine there must be something in my settings/configurations somewhere that is messing things up. Is there a reset I can perform?

I would need to see your scene trigger conditions to diagnose this.

Hope this is what you needed. Thanks!

Ah, OK. When Reactor runs a Vera scene, it cannot send a notification that is configured on the scene, it only runs the scene’s device actions.

Here are the alternatives, in order of preference:

  1. Use the notifications on the Notifications tab of the ReactorSensor. This is the standard Vera notification mechanism that applies to all devices. You will want to notify if the RS tripped (whether armed or disarmed). But to make this successful, you will need to reorganize your groups so that only the washer/dryer idle group causes the RS to trip.
  2. Tell this RS that instead of running the scene itself, just hand the scene off to Vera for execution. To do this, set the UseReactorScenes state variable on this ReactorSensor only to 0.

FYI, I’m experimenting with a new notification system for Reactor. If you want to be a test subject for that when I get it fleshed out, let me know.

Suggestions sound promising! I will try once I get back home.

Definitely put me down for being a test subject. Thank you!

I can also test for you.

The first alternative you suggested is the easiest and most logical choice, but it just doesn’t work for whatever reason in my setup. However I do get notifications from Vera for its native functions with no problems.

The good news is your second alternative worked like a charm! Thank you so much for helping me solve this strange problem.