HAL2000 light dim thru MainLobby

[myname]

I am a newbie. I have HAL2000 and I want to use MyLobby as the interface, I am having trouble with dimming. I am using the Slider01_release and can't seem to make it work. The lamp is just either on or off. I just want to make the lamp dim to whatever percentage I put the slider to.

If anyone in the forum who is using HAL2000 and MainLobby integration, I would appreciate it if you could teach me the process you did to make the slider work.

Hope you can help me.

Thanks.

[mcascio]

Let's start with the basics before going to a slider.

Have you successfully been able to send a dim command to your light for 50%? If so, what is the command you are sending.

[myname]

Yes, I am able to do that. And the command used is

MLServeCmd.MLHAL|DEVICE~MASTER BEDROOM LAMP LIGHTS~GRADUATED~50

This will dim the lamp light to 50%

[mcascio]

Perfect.

Your slider button properties should look something like the attached image.

I don't know the variable that Hal is creating in MLServer, so the label field will have a different value than the one shown.

[myname]

I did what you said, but unfortunately the slider still keeps jumping back, BUT the lamp dims. And I cannot see the variable being created on ML server.

[mcascio]

Yeah - until you identify the variable created by HAL in our variable list, your slider won't know what value to use.

It's possible that HAL isn't naming them starting with MLHAL. In fact, now that I think about it I don't think they do. So you'll have to scrub through the variables and see if you can pick it out.

It might start with Device or Light instead.

Let us know what you find.

[myname]

I found the variable in the server and it is Device1State. So here goes what I did I put {{Device1State}} to the label of the slider button and MLServeCmd.MLHAL|DEVICE~MASTER BEDROOM LAMP LIGHTS~GRADUATED~{{value}} on the MLServeCmd "pic1"

pic1

pic1.png (562.28 KiB) Viewed 39 times

Then, if I slide it, the lamp turns on to the dim % correctly but HAL Plugin reports it as ON. So the slider goes all the way to the right. "pic2"

pic2

pic2.png (465.94 KiB) Viewed 39 times

Now if I refresh the HAL plugin it reports the proper dim % and reflects it on the ML. "pic3"

pic3

pic3.png (468.41 KiB) Viewed 39 times

I will email HAL about the plugin, hopefully they can help. But is there a command to refresh the plugin everytime it is used? Or is there a setting that I must have missed to refresh/update the plugin?

Thanks a lot.

[mcascio]

The slider expects to see a value of 0 to 100. In the case where the value equals On, it goes to the right. And if Off, it goes to the far left.

In our lighting plugins, we typically will create two variables.
_state = on, off
_status = 0..100

Perhaps there is a second variable that reports the status in only numeric values?

You might have to talk to HAL and see if they can create that second variable for their lights. Otherwise, we could trick the system by creating our own variable, but if someone went up to the light and hit it, the status wouldn't be accurate at the touch screen.

[myname]

Hi Mario,

Thanks for all your help.... I am learning a lot.

In light of this problem. Should the worse happen and MLHAL still could not return a dimmer value without manually refreshing the MLHAL plugin. If I let ML handle the UPB PIM to control the lights using the interface and I have another UPB PIM connected to HAL2000 to control the same UPB dimmer via voice command, is this possible? Can the status be reported to ML Server and reflected in the interface if I change it manually or through voice?

What do you think?

[mcascio]

Yes. Two pimms should solve your problem. I know a few dealers that do it that way.

It should also greatly simplify your setup and speed up integration. You simply import the Upstart file from our UPB plugin and it pulls in all your lights.

There's even a room variable that we create. If a light is on in a room, you can indicate it visually. Great when integrating floor plans!