Button that utilizes HE virtual button

[josh]

@Robert_C

A question, how does Sharptools utilize a zigbee button?

@josh

Hubitat buttons can be authorized to SharpTools and used to trigger SharpTools rules. Historically, buttons were considered sensor devices within Hubitat – meaning they only reported their state when a button was physically actuated.

A zigbee button follows the original design paradigm. It’s a physically actuated button, so it’s only reporting it’s state/events to the hub (and to SharpTools). There’s no command to ‘push’ a physical button in the original design.

And when I mention ‘Historically’ above, I mean the original ‘Button’ and ‘PushableButton’ capabilities literally did not have commands as part of the specification at all.

Old Documentation Screenshots

And I wanted to post a copy of an alternative approach from our PMs for anyone else who finds this thread: (Please still feel free to cast a vote for Virtual Button support too!)

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I forgot to mention in the other threads that we also support the Momentary capability from Hubitat.

@josh

There’s a “Virtual Momentary” device type in Hubitat which implements the Momentary (and Switch) capabilities and could be used with the Momentary Tile layout .

My apologies! It totally slipped my mind that this was a better option and would act more like a button for you (once you change it to the Momentary Tile Layout).

I put together a Virtual Momentary Switch driver that is a Switch, Momentary, and Button. That probably provides the best compatibility between Rule Machine and SharpTools for a ‘button’ type of functionality.