I am new to sharptools. I am trying to migrate my webcore pistons to sharptools. I have a garage door with a sensor on it. In webcore, I was able to use the position sensor data to trigger an event if the door was left open. It basically said if x>900 then… On sharptools I can see the option to use “threeaxis” in my if statement, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to use that to replicate my experience in webcore. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Maybe I’m missing something, but SharpTools should be able to see the open/closed status of the door, right. So can’t you just do something like IF xx stays open for x minutes THEN . . . ?
Unfortunately, it’s not a garage door sensor. It’s a multi-sensor. I suppose I could always change the device type in smartthings, but that would get rid of the other functions of the sensor.
Ahh, I understand now. I use GoControls so the door sensor is part of the controller. You are using a separate 3-axis sensor and presumably a separate dry-contact relay.
I have some tilt sensors (but no 3-axis). They expose the “contact” as open or closed. I’m guessing the 3-axis doesn’t? Maybe switch or add a different tilt sensor?
My smartthings three axis multipurpose sensors have a setting in the app to treat them like tilt sensors. Its called “use on garage door”.
I have that turned on, but it didn’t change the behavior at all. I might try removing the device and adding it back in with an edge driver to smartthings to see if that changes things. I was going for a with around in sharptools since it worked in webcore, but I guess not.
One of the FAQs mentioned something about them dropping that setting. When I readded mine a few weeks ago it joined with the same groovy dth still but I haven’t tried any of the community drivers to see if they handle it.
Can you post a screenshot of the attributes that sensor exposes? Add the device as a trigger and drop down the Attribute box.
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These are the lists of attributes:
This is what the if statement looks like when I select threeaxis for the attribute. I cannot figure out the syntax for the box on the bottom. No matter what I try, it does not trigger the rule.
Select the Contact attribute and see what the picks are. I’m thinking it may be open and closed. If that’s the case, that sensor should be open in one position and closed when it’s rotated 90 degrees.
When you flip that setting on, the magnetic contact sensor stops functioning and the position of the main sensor body is what determines the open/closed state of the ‘contact’ attribute.
| = closed
_ = open
Imagine the sensor being mounted to the top panel of your garage door. When the door is closed, that panel is perpendicular to the ground and so the sensor is as well, so it reports as closed. → |
When the garage starts to open, that top panel starts to angle / and once the door and sensor get parallel to the ground, it moves out of ‘closed’ status and changes to ‘open’. → _
As a related anecdote… In my last house, I ended up changing out to a Z-wave Tilt sensor for my Garage and found it to be easier to use, more reliable, and less network traffic from all the X,Y,Z position changes. As a bonus, you can pop open the housing and physically adjust the little tilt sensor in it to make sure it switches to ‘open’ faster – that was a critical factor for me as if my garage was even just a few inches open and the top panel was just partially tilted, I wanted the garage to report as open.
Zooz also makes a 700 series tilt sensor that’s highly reviewed and under $25, but I haven’t tried it.
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I’m using the Zooz 700 series sensors. No problems at all, and battery life is amazing.
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Well, I’ll be darned, changing the setting to use on garage door did make open/close tell me if the garage door was open. However, I was using a magnet on the latch to tell if it was locked. So, I now I can trigger an event if it is open, but not if it is unlocked. This is a basement door and does not have an opener. The point of having this device was to monitor both latch state and open/close state. I’m beginning to think that I am not going to be able to replicate this.