Buttons to trigger "other" stuff

I am connected to c-gate and watching the event and status logs for changes on my network. I can see every time a key is pressed AS LONG AS that button is tied to a lighting load.

I am trying to get my head around how to make a button on one of my units do something else. For instance, say I wanted my system to send an SMS when I pressed a key.

Since the key isnt tied to a lighting load, nothing is hitting the event or the status logs, is there some way to get those keypresses to trigger a press in my logs (so I can fire off the SMS?)

I thought about just tying them to some bogus load just so I can see the keypress, but this feels like a hack, is there a better way?

Thanks,
Anthony

 

A good example of this would be using buttons to control my sonos audio system. The way I did this was to create a "group" called "music" and assign it to the button on my DLT. Is this the way you would recommend to do this?

Here is a video of it in action:

 

Anthony,

Assign a group to a spare key and it will send events like any other key, it doesn't have to be assigned to an Output unit.

Alternatively, you could use something called 'Phantom' groups. The only trick is to initialise the group BEFORE you try and use it.

Here is an example of group 15 that is not initialised and once initialised it responds like any other group.

Code:

get 254/56/15 level
401 Bad object or device ID.

on 254/56/15
200 OK: //MIDSTRM/254/56/15

get 254/56/15 level
300 //MIDSTRM/254/56/15: level=255

off 254/56/15      
200 OK: //MIDSTRM/254/56/15

get 254/56/15 level
300 //MIDSTRM/254/56/15: level=0

Ingo

 

Thanks Ingo. I was wondering what "phantom" groups were. I am assuming those are transient too, meaning they go away when C-Gate resets?

Also, there is a max of 255 groups on a single network right? I'm sure I'll have more dumb questions as I go, thanks for dealing with the newb

 

Correct.

 

There are 255 groups within a single Lighting Application. There are 48 separate lighting applications in the (hex) range $30 to $5F. Other Applications have different message structures, although some are allocated as free for use.

It would be worth your time to learn what the different applications are as there are some much cleverer message types than just turning things on and off.

 

If you are using a C-Bus key unit to issue a command (to do something other than control lighting), you might want the key to do the same thing each time you press it.

If the key is configured as a toggle, you will get alternate on / off commands. If you configure it as "Onkey", it will work only once. If you configure it as "Offkey", it will work only once.

If you configure it using a Recall (recall 1 or recall2), you will always get the same message, and the recall level can be used if you want to convey some information that might be useful to the (non-lighting) application.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Seems like the sky is the limit with this stuff, nice.