Presentation and first questions

Hello every one,

My name is Nicolas, I am new to home automation, I have a good tech background but I am zero in electricity.
My goal in home automation, would be

  • to improve electiricty management in my house (like installing a switch where there is no electricity wire or be able to remotly switch off the light in a room)
  • or to manage security (door or window opening)

I just got a veraplus
I have a netatmo thermostat and a netatmo weather station which I have successfully associated and manage to get a fibaro fgd211 and a Mi door sensor, I need to install

Currently I am looking for detail documentation to understand how veraplus , zigbee or z-wave are working, I found the wiki (Luup UPnP Variables and Actions - MiOS) but I am not sure it is up to date (for instance apparently no mention on device_json fie). My goal with this documentation would be to understand how implementation file, device_json on device_file (xml) are managed so I can maybe add unknown sensor (like the Mi door sensor or ikea tradfri) and set them up

Thanks everyone
Have a great day
Nicolas

Welcome to the forum, Nicolas!

Aside from the forum itself, which is a great resource but hard to navigate sometimes, the Wiki is perhaps your best source of (often outdated) information.

Specifically, the JSON file is documented here:
http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Luup_plugins:_Static_JSON_file

Feel free to ask any question. Let’s hope that someone can be along soon who can answer your issues in detail.

AK

Thanks akbooer, If I understand correctly, json files are more for the display of the device, while the xml file is more to describe the way device operates.

To integrate an unknown sigbee device (Mi door sensor), does it mean that I can duplicate the json and xml of zigbee door sensor and tune it by successive tries?

Nicolas

Broadly, yes. In fact:

  • Service files (S_xxx.xml) define the variables and actions provided by a service
  • Implementation files (I_xxx.xml) define how a set of serviecs (and a plugin) are implemented
  • Device files (D_xxx.xml) define the collection of services and which implementation for a device
  • JSON files, how the device panel looks, icon, etc., and, bizarrely, which events the device produces

Well, you can do that, but it may not be necessary. it depends what functionality you are after. The category and subcategory device attributes can be used to change the device icon. For a specific device type it’s best to stick to an existing, well-known, device type if you want a third-party app to handle it correctly.

Thanks again, I will look at the existing category and do some testing with my mi door sensor

Nicolas