I have a controller in each of 2 homes, and am trying to figure out a systematic way to have one talk to the other based on conditions.
Right now, the closest I’ve come up with is a VeraAlert (RTS) that sends specific alert based on condition of controller 1, which is picked up by Tasker AutoNotification intercept on a phone, which then uses Tasker AutoVera to trip a virtual sensor on controller 2. It works most of the time, but it’s clunky and want something stronger and less complex. So far my only other option I have seen is AltUI which I have not yet installed.
link the two networks via an IPSec VPN (if your routers allow) and then you could just send a http request between controllers. Got the idea off @amg0@rafale77
Thanks @ElCid - I’m not familiar with how to do that, but everything can be googled! lol
The main purpose of this is to switch house modes, so that morning and night are automated only when I’m not at that home. Right now, the tasker piece sets a virtual switch that enables vacation mode, and that is only enabled when the virtual switch triggers it (so it’s a once and done, and doesn’t repeat every time we enter the vacation home) - any ideas if I can combine some “If/and” logic to the http request?
gotcha - thanks. I’ll look into the router situation.
The vacation home logic sends an alert every time we enter our code on the door. Tasker intercepts it and trips a virtual switch (Vacation Mode), which puts the house into vacation mode. But, if the virtual switch is already switched, it doesn’t keep running since since it only works on the virtual switch turning on. Once we get near the main house, I have Life360 trigger our Virtual Switches for each family member to on, and any of those being on triggers the Home scene, which also changes the house mode. So basically they will stay in the right mode unless we migrate back and forth lol.
You should be able to leave the logic the same just instead of an alert just use scene/reactor to send A http request using lua code, when ever your virtual switch is turned on or off.
I think you’re right - perfect. Now to look into the vpn feasibility… I am sure one router can do it, but not sure of the vacation home.
Thanks!!
and to update… Eero does not have router level VPN, so this is a no-go. FWIW, Eero is stable and with a nice interface but dang it lacks real and usable features. But maybe I could use IFTTT and webhooks from a curl lua script - which is what i use to arm and disarm the blink motion camera.
you could send the http request with out vpn but you would need to forward a port to vera from the router at the receiving end [edit this less secure than vpn], you would have to do same for ifttt and webhook.
i do similar to you but i use automate. i can send a cloud message to automate. i find it reliable, so am suprised tasker is not reliable.
Tasker is pretty reliable, but I’d love to remove my old phone from playing middle man. I actually just found out through Imperihome (my main app for using Vera), which can have multiple controllers, like altui, that I can have my vacation home execute curl to a mini-server on my phone app it can toggle the switch of the remote controller. Only catch is that my phone has to be on the local wifi before the code is entered on the door. Likely going to be hit or miss. Research continues but this is getting closer.
I could port forward vera so that I could hit it directly from vera to vera but don’t want to risk that without the vpn aspect, right?
There is a security aspect of forwarding a port, I am not an expert so best ask some one else that question.
If you forwarded a port to vera , yes you could just do a direct request.
I applaud your moxie, @ruster34, and agree with your desire to remove extraneous workarounds (IFTTT, VPN, Tasker, Webhooks, etc.) for something that really ought to be straightforward.
Can’t help wondering if @Sorin and his team could one day implement a long-term FREE solution in the form of a Vera-to-Vera communication structure – sort of an in-house GetVera VPN to which each hub could ‘subscribe’ and thereby pass basic status information, like ‘House Mode’! (tl;dr <cough> MQTT** <cough>)
Fact: Synology NAS devices do this routinely. No reason Vera devices should not.
Barring that, of course we’ve all been waiting for true IFTTT implementation, but know that it’s not really going to happen at this juncture.
Which leaves my mind creatively wanting to offer you a solution using another third-party, Web-based database solution (I understand several exist just for this kind of ‘state’ passing, but I have never tried them with Vera). The first and best prospect that comes to the fore is GOOGLE DOCS — we’d just have to conceive an easy way to roundtrip simple text strings to a spreadsheet from one Vera to another.
In the meantime, I see no reason why the updated Vera Mobile app (running on any mobile device, not necessarily your phone) could one day accomplish this task, since the app can already manage multiple controllers. I just don’t know if it can yet manage them at the same time!!
Thanks @LibraSun! and yes, something simple should be available for communicating inter-platform - but I understand the market for this is probably pretty low compared to single device users. With that being said, something like what you explained should also be decently straightforward to implement and would greatly improve interoperability
Local connectivity between Ezlo Firmwares will be added in the future. We’ll leave MQTT solution on the hands of the third-party developers tho.
Thank you, much appreciated. If it’s not too much of a hassle or effort, we look forward to it and I’ll pass this info to the team. But keep in mind that we’re talking about Ezlo Firmware and compatible gateways.
Currently plugin for HundredGraphs only sends notifications to the HG. But we were looking into possibility to execute tasks initiated by AI on a controller as well.
So if we have enough people interested in this option we can add it as well. One controller initiates a task and another controller executes it
If you’re technical enough, there are way more elegant solutions. I personally use an Azure queue (reachable via an Azure Functions, so HTTP) to queue messages from the outside (ie: my phone, or cloud only integrations, running outside of my house), and then I remove them from the queue with a custom application, publishing this an MQTT message, received by my generic MQTT-to-Vera broker. No need to expose ports or anything - everything is segregated from a physical and security point of view.
In short, this is a non standard requirement and no standard solutions are available in the market, IMHO.
I constructed the app I’d promised, but only at the last minute realized that the programming environment I choose (Google Apps Script) is not suited for passing simple text, due to security restrictions. I’ll have to keep plugging away, although I like the Azure-based solution someone mentioned.
As noted above, yes, I did. However, we quickly realized that it was unable to (easily and neatly) pass variable values back to Vera, due to Google’s restrictive management of output from their Apps Script API. (Reasons include dynamic document objects in the HTML rendition, and site redirection in the TextOutput version.)
Sorry! Although it’s actually a trivial programming (Javascript) challenge, my free cloud-based solution was not ready for prime time.