Notifications, Rule Engine Enhancements, and Sign-in Account Linking

SharpTools.io (web) Announcements
1

We are excited to announce another SharpTools.io platform release which brings with it several new features:

New Notification Features

This release includes a brand new Notification action in the Rule Engine! We are introducing email, SMS and Pushbullet notifications to better keep you up to date with what’s happening in your smart home! For example, I’ve setup a rule that check the status of my locks and garage door each night and will send me a notification if either is left unlocked or open.
image

In order to use the various features, you’ll need to make sure you account is connected with the appropriate provider. For SMS and Email notifications, just make sure you have the relevant account type linked to your account. You can now link SMS and email accounts from the user card on the account page - see the account linking section for more details!

Rule Engine Editor Enhancements

Several enhancements were included with the Rule Engine with this release including a new ‘Advanced’ option for setting custom device parameters, a color picker for devices which support color inputs, and drag-and-drop re-ordering of actions.

Advanced Device Action

The ‘Advanced’ option can be found in the top-right corner of the Device Action card and lets you customize the parameters that are sent to your devices. For example, some community device types and even official device types don’t properly report the parameters that they accept. This feature allows you to override how many parameters and what type of data is being sent.

image

For example, perhaps your device doesn’t properly report that it accepts accepts additional data along with the setColor command - now you can build custom parameters:
image image

Color Picker

Speaking of color, there’s a fancy new color picker to make it easier to control your color enabled devices. Simply select the desired hue and optionally adjust the saturation level:
image

Drag-and-drop re-ordering of actions

Also included with this release is the ability to re-order the actions in your Rules. Have you ever setup a rule and later realized you wanted to add actions in the middle of the flow or configure the flow in a different order?
Now you can easily re-order your rules using the drag-and-drop editor. Simply click the drag icon in the card header and drag the card to the position you want it to be in.

2018-07-25_16-23-13
2018-07-25_16-23-13518×542 107 KB

Sign-in Account Linking

Included with this release is the ability to link other account sign-ins! While this is particularly helpful for being able to link an phone number to send an SMS to, it’s also a convenient way to login using a different account type.

image

One use-case for this is linking an email/password or SMS login account to a Google account to allow you to login on certain devices. For example, Google blocks the ability to sign-in when a web page is viewed in a ‘webview’ - and when an app is pinned to the homescreen on iOS it runs in a webview making it impossible to sign-in with a Google credential. Now you can link an SMS or email/password credential and login using those on your restricted devices.

Note that there is a workaround for Google Sign-in on Fully Kiosk Browser which you can find here:

Also note that if you try to link a credential which is already associated with another account, you will be prompted to merge the accounts (and verify ownership of both). Some data like dashboards, hyperlinks, media, and rules can be migrated, but connections to your IoT platforms and the data associated with them will not be migrated (Locations, Things). As such, after merging sign-in accounts, you may need to authorize additional devices for your primary account to have access to.

4 Likes
2

Hi! is there a way I can compare the status of 2 different devices and based on that take an action? thanks

1 Like
3

Can you give an example of the type of comparison you are trying to do? You can do basic comparisons today like

  • IF light1=on AND light2=on THEN ...
  • IF temperature1 > 28 OR temperature2 > 30 THEN ...
  • IF level1=50 AND level2=50 THEN ...

We have been looking at putting a concept of variables, math, and string manipulations in place though. So you could do something like:

$variable1 = sensor1.temperature
$variable2 = sensor2.temperature
$average = $variable1 + $variable2 / 2
IF $average > 28 THEN ...
2 Likes
4

Just pushed a platform update with hotfix for the Rule Engine scrolling issue on mobile devices. Enjoy the new touch-friendly, scrollable drag-and-drop reordering! :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
5

Is it possible to have sunset/sunrise option in time. Then be abliltiy to start it x time before or after sunset?

1 Like
6

Great suggestion. We’ll look into it!

7

Hi Josh,. Any chance the Rule Engine will support the old Sharptools Thing attributes…such as %st_attr_value?

Nice work on the engine, could replaced many of my Tasker scripts. It’s very responsive. Many thanks.

1 Like
8

Yes, we have plans to introduce global variables which should provide similar functionality.

Do you have any specific examples of how you would use the variables?

9

The basic things I do in Tasker, something like this for a notification:

The %st_thing_name is %st_attr_value @ %DATE - %TIME

1 Like
10

Any progress on sunset as a trigger?
Also, fading a light on over a period of time? Maybe I overlooked this?
Thanks.

11

We’ve analyzed a few sources for sunrise and sunset data and are trying to determine if this is going to get rolled into a weather source as many weather sources have good sunrise/sunset data.

What duration of time are you thinking about? Like over 10 minutes or 10 seconds?

12

Ok. Over my head how to do it :slight_smile:

This is how I have it set up today.

image
image833×288 28.1 KB

I don’t dictate the minutes… They move up a few % over 60 min as the sun is going down.

13

Thanks for the example. I was looking for the order of magnitude on the timescale and that answered it. Since it’s minutes (rather than seconds), we would need to add some logic that incrementally issued dim commands (setLevel) to get you to your desired dim level.

What happens if you started dimming from 10% to 50% over 60 minutes, but partially through the dimming cycle, you manually adjust the dim level to a different value?

14

This part is annoying. If I turn the light off it will turn it back on until it reaches the desired %. I could fix it with more code but not gotten around to it as it doesn’t happen often.

1 Like
15

Is there a device limit? I select all my devices in Hubitat Elevate and none appear. If i select some individually to test, they appear correctly. No big deal. Just wondering.

16

Thanks for the message and sorry that things aren’t working as expected. There is no limit on the number of devices you can authorize. You mentioned that things work when you individually authorize a set of devices…if you can narrow down which device is causing the authorization issue, I’d love to better understand what is causing the issue.

We’ve seen two issues which can cause authorization issues. One user reported that their Lowe’s Iris Outlets would causes authorization issues - it turns out the switch connects as both Zigbee and Z-wave, but the Z-wave side of things was setup as a Switch driver and the device didn’t actually report a switch on/off value which was causing Hubitat to hang during authorization. (The driver could either be switched to a generic Z-wave device or not selected during the authorization process)

Similarly, another user just recently reported that when they authorize their device group ‘device’ it would cause the authorization to hang.

If you have either of those devices, I would try excluding them during your authorization.

17

As clarification, the Z-wave part of the Iris Outlets should be configured as a Generic Z-wave Repeater. Since it doesn’t do anything but help the Z-wave mesh, there is no reason to authorize it in Sharp Tools.

1 Like
18

I notice the first part of this question (dusk/dawn data) never was answered (that I can find). Is that still a candidate feature?

19

Yes, sunset/sunrise triggers have been developed for the Rule Engine and are planned for an upcoming release. :smiley:

20

Exciting! For a newbee, how do we know when new releases happen and what’s in them?