Remote Triggering of Scenes

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by rhamer, Jan 20, 2008.

  1. rhamer

    rhamer

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    After many years and 2 C-Bus equipped houses, I find myself for the first time trying to set up C-Bus scenes.

    In the past I have always stored such things in my Minder and triggered it with a phantom Group address, but now I have the need to do it "Natively"

    I seem to have the grasp of how it all works and I have stored my scenes in a neo unit. I have successfully triggered them from a key on the same neo unit and also from a key on a standard 4 key input unit.

    So far, so good.

    However there is one thing that I can't quite understand with regard to remote triggering of a scene.

    In order to trigger a scene remotely that scene needs to be associated with an 'Action Selector' and the only way I can see to make that association is to assign a physical key to that scene and then give it an action selector.

    Is this correct ?

    I would have thought I could use all the keys on my neo to do other things and have the scenes triggered by another unit, after all isn't that the point of using it just as a storage medium, or is the idea that remotely triggering the scene is a bit like pressing a button on my TV remote rather than getting up and pressing it on the TV its' self ? i.e I am just remotely controlling the button on the neo, and therefore it has to already exist ?

    Cheers

    Rohan
     
    rhamer, Jan 20, 2008
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  2. rhamer

    ashleigh Moderator

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    Yep.

    Some products will allow scenes to be stored without them being associated to a local key, but for the Neo, thats the way it works.

    Yes.

    One day in the dim and distant future this will change to be more flexible, so that you just have a bucket of scenes, activated by trigger group and action selector, w/o a need to consume a local key as well.

    **I'm not sure (Don will no doubt clarify) but I **think** on a Neo with less than 8 keys you can assign scenes to an unused BLOCK, and trigger them remotely, thus not consuming a key locally.
     
    ashleigh, Jan 20, 2008
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  3. rhamer

    rhamer

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    Hey, it's Sunday shouldn't you be out playing golf or something :)

    Thanks for the answer though, I thought for a while I was going crazy.

    Cheers

    Rohan
     
    rhamer, Jan 20, 2008
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  4. rhamer

    ashleigh Moderator

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    The CIS people who peek into cbus forums periodically do so as a labour of love, its not paid for by CIS and its usually done in their own time.

    I was doing something else on a Sunday and poked my head in here for half a mo... might as well answer while here :)
     
    ashleigh, Jan 20, 2008
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  5. rhamer

    rhamer

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    And Good for me that you did, I got my project finished.

    Thanks again.

    Cheers

    Rohan
     
    rhamer, Jan 21, 2008
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  6. rhamer

    Don

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    The reason scenes use up keys in NEO is that the scene requires extra information besides a pointer to the 'scene bucket' where the scene is stored, and the NEO is a bit shy on EEPROM, so memory used for normal key functions has been shared. For a scene, we need to store the group-level pairs that get broadcast (scene bucket), we need a pointer to the start of the group-level pair list, we need an action selector, and a ramp rate for the scene. These bits of information are store in EEPROM normally used for defining indicator behaviour, and key functions on pressing a key.

    Wireless key units are different and I believe they do not share memory in the same way.

    Unused keys are indeed available in a NEO for use in scenes, so if you have a 4-key plate then you can have 4 scenes triggered externally. I'm not sure Toolkit allows setting up this option yet though.
     
    Don, Jan 21, 2008
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  7. rhamer

    rhamer

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    Yeah, I couldn't see how to do that in toolkit, so I'm guessing it's not there yet.

    Also all my neo's are 8 key (just as all my standards are 4 key) I figure the incremental cost up front is worth it, because as I expand functionality, I dont have to go out and buy extra buttons. and should I have a failure, I can swap them round easily. Besides if the buttons are there, I'll always find something to make use of them.

    Thanks for your help

    Cheers

    Rohan
     
    rhamer, Jan 21, 2008
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  8. rhamer

    ICS-GS

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    Other scene repositories

    Rohan,

    Another nice thing i have in my place is the colour touch screen. Sure its not for those 'fiscally challenged'.

    I also decided after having c-bus in my place for over two years, it was time to set up some scene thingys, they are very handy!

    But getting back to the point, what i done (for the most part) is stored most of my scenes within the c-touch, then i can call them from whater device i like, and the added bonus is that you can have 250 GA's in a single scene. Which is great for things like an all off scene when the alarm panel is armed, etc.

    Enjoy your new found functionality!

    Cheers

    Grant
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 23, 2008
    ICS-GS, Jan 23, 2008
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