Voice Control the £20 way

[chris_j_hunter]

GP - yes, we thought the same ...

GL & virtual modules - so very useful, for so many things ... well worth a try ... we use them, too, for fixing all sorts of issues - eg: making sure our switch-dimmable lights cycle only when we want them too, run our bath or fill a bucket without us keeping an eye, cutting down on shower water usage, running dishwasher while we are asleep or no one about, etc, etc ...

HomePods - yes, in the October presentation they mentioned that it could distinguish between people, and that two could also work co-operatively when appropriate (eg: working in stereo) ...

Siri - it's great that there's no need to enter the Passcode before doing a long press of the Home button ...

meaning (eg) ... in car, when arrive home, can simply press the Home button long and just tell Siri to open-up (gate, garage door, lights, announce arrival, etc) ... so simple & convenient, and safe (no distraction, can keep eyes on the road) ...

[cliffwright]

GL & virtual modules - so very useful, for so many things ... well worth a try ... we use them, too, for fixing all sorts of issues - eg: making sure our switch-dimmable lights cycle only when we want them too, run our bath or fill a bucket without us keeping an eye, cutting down on shower water usage, running dishwasher while we are asleep or no one about, etc, etc ...

Yeah - I'll have a play over the weekend to see what I can enhance.

How do you cut down shower water usage? Are you actually cutting off the shower water, or just warning "users" after a period of time in the shower through flashing lights or something?

I don't have any taps controlled by Cortex - what valves or taps are you using? How are you physically controlling the tap? I've not done anything like this so far because for small amounts of water (single cup fulls) I just don't see a need, but for bucket full's and bath-fills, I can see the point ...

HomePods - yes, in the October presentation they mentioned that it could distinguish between people, and that two could also work co-operatively when appropriate (eg: working in stereo) ...

Siri - it's great that there's no need to enter the Passcode before doing a long press of the Home button ...

meaning (eg) ... in car, when arrive home, can simply press the Home button long and just tell Siri to open-up (gate, garage door, lights, announce arrival, etc) ... so simple & convenient, and safe (no distraction, can keep eyes on the road) ...

For me, I don't have to press the home button (well, there isn't a home button on the iPhone X and up) .. I've accepted the crack in the tin-foil-hat and on m'phone, enabled the "Listen for Hey Siri" option .. so I don't have to touch my phone at all to make it open the garage door, but it doesn't seem to work whilst in my pocket, but fine if I leave my phone just "out" in the car.

Cortex Mobile ... we still use it on iPhone & Android tablets, but we were looking for something more direct, for things like your garage door, so Home Screen buttons & Siri ... we having found, since we moved to Cortex W10, that the special buttons we'd included in Cortex Mobile via Menus no longer worked, seemingly due to incompatibilities with iOS - I gave up trying to sort it, but intend to get back to it, hopefully with a fresh mind ...

Cortex e-mail - also stopped working when we moved to Cortex W10 - haven't been able to fathom it, could be an incompatibility with Google, but much of it is beyond me !

I use Cortex mobile, but it really isn't "the best" ... I mostly use it locally in the house, and so whitelist my IP to avoid the login .. but even then, I find that every time I "return" to it after even a short period, it returns me to the home page again rather than leaving me in place ..

When outside the house, I clearly then use a DDNS address with authentication, but again find the login doesn't persist at all and I find myself dead-ended on a page telling me I'm not authorized, but it doesn't return me to the login page again, so I have to then literally close the tab, open a new one, re-enter the Mobile address and login again .. it's just too faffy to be practical to perform quick actions (hence why this iOS Shortcut is a god-send).

An iOS app with FaceId would be far better .. but I understand that it's an investment to produce ..


Did you get your iOS Shortcut working in the end?

[chris_j_hunter]

iOS shortcuts ... yes, we did succeed ...

eventually, it all tumbled into place, and we now already have six shortcuts working, each also with Siri ...

and that’s a big thanks to you - your patience was much appreciated ...

we hadn’t reallised settings could be set to have Siri hands-free - but we now have that option selected, too ...

shame, though - it only works hands-off when connected to power - at least on our 'phones ...

Shortcuts - they seem to work fine pulsing relays (in DRBs & QRIs), but not with button presses (in QBIs) - was hoping to remotely do double-clicks ... will have another go later ...

working with Postman was very useful - being able to click code to see what was actually sent got me straight on how to code cURL instructions - the irrelevant examples available via Google having not helped at all ...

it was a long haul, but all this now means we can also write GET instructions in Applescript which work - via a Shell script ...

on the other hand, we can’t get POST instructions to work - which is odd, because the scripts for GET & POST are very similar ... and they both work in Postman, so why not in Applescript / Shell ??

of course, it’s the POST ones we really need to work - for our RFID tags to send commands to Cortex ...

ie: pass an RFID over a Mir:ror, connected to our MacBookPro, feeding Reflexio which then sends an Applescript POST to Cortex ... if only the POST would work !

shower, taps, etc - we found an affordable way to make all our water outlets automated ... Coastform no-touch sensors, vending-machine solenoids, and Swedish chromed gauze outlets (as fitted to many taps), triggered by Cortex relays ... add in some GL, and the outlets can be timed to run only so-long ... the so-long being context-sensitive - eg: shower on enough to wet, off while soap, on again to rinse ... and whatever for other outlets ...

Cortex Mobile ... yes, we have the same issues, plus the Menu-driven buttons no longer working ... we too white-list while in-house ... will now investigate DNNS + authentication for while we are outside ... at the moment we just require log-in ...

Chris

[Karam]

I don't know anything about Applescript/Shell, but in case of relevance - there was a fix put into CortexW10 very recently to handle some aspect of the POST feature which didn't work the same as it did for GET (courtesy of feedback from Cliffwright, except I thought this only relevant when using the CortexW10 Client). Anyhow you could try a development update.

[chris_j_hunter]

ah ... could be, because the GET script runs & stops, in under a second, while the POST one just runs & runs ...

which maybe suggests all could be well at the Applescript end ...

both fine via Postman, though ...

will update at the next opportunity, fingers crossed ...

[cliffwright]

Great - glad you're up and running - pleasure to help

The Issue I found that Karam describes is with the GET requests from Cortex (outbound traffic from Cortex fetching data back into Cortex) using the Web API Client it wasn't putting the Authorization Key-Value pair in the header appropriately, but for POST requests it was. A very swift turn around from Karam / Viv sorted it in the latest Development build though so all working perfectly now.

If I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, you're firing a POST request IN to Cortex from your macBook / reflexio (what is reflexio btw?) ? This aspect (albeit from Postman) works fine for me even before this dev fix and is what you're doing in the iOS Shortcuts successfully to pulse relays in DRB's QRI's? ... If you can you successfully fire the POST request in Postman / iOS Shortcut, then it can't be a Cortex issue .. perhaps run the request through Wireshark / Fiddler etc between reflexio and Cortex to check what is coming out of the Applescript to compare it to what you see in Postman (that is successful)?

I don't have any QBI's to play with, but I've just had a little play with 'pressing buttons' on an SLD using the API's and I think I see the same thing. Grabbing the port info for just the "Button 1" port and forming;

POST /api/v1/Objects/Office Bedroom Dimmer Main Buttons?Button 1=1

works fine .. but;

POST /api/v1/Objects/Office Bedroom Dimmer Main Buttons?Double Click Button 1=1

doesn't seem to work (Whilst you get a 200 response).

@Karam - is this something you can look at? I "Think" the request is fine here .. (Apologies, I appear to be causing you grief these days finding these low level fiddly issues )


@Chris .. what action is your "Double click" taking? You can just hit that "thing" direct perhaps? for example, my theoretical example SLD has a Double click action of setting a certain scene ... so instead of doing;

POST /api/v1/Objects/Office Bedroom Dimmer Main Buttons?Double Click Button 1=1

To do a "Double press" .. I can do;

POST /api/v1/Objects/Office Bedroom Dimmer Main Dimmer?Set to Scene 2=1

which will achieve the same output and this approach seems to work on my SLD.




iOS Shortcuts for me don't demand the phone to be on charge .. not sure if that changed at any point in the iOS lifecycle but I've never known it to be a requirement (although didn't really use Siri much til now).

Interesting stuff on the Tap / Water front thanks .. will look into what you've said and consider it on my roadmap

[chris_j_hunter]

Mir:ror & Reflexio :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir:ror

download here :

https://lcprod.net/#reflexio

[chris_j_hunter]

haven't tried POSTing to General Logic objects, yet - but, if all else fails, maybe can always create a Virtual Relay in Cortex, that triggers whatever ...

real or virtual, both seem to respond ...

[Karam]

Buttons don't actually show that they have an (In) port when queried but posting a Button n=1 does act as a virtual button push. However the double click, single click and long push ports only look to be exposed as output ports. As you say it may be better to actually directly trigger whatever the double click is doing though this might be grouped into a macro if multiple items. Remember that one undesirable side effect of 'virtually pushing' a button is that Cortex will see this as someone has physically pushed it so the associated room occupancy will be affected. So if intent on using virtual buttons to do things it may be a good idea to put these outside the house.

[chris_j_hunter]

dimmer / scenes is not something we've explored - have always worked from the scenes end ... so will now explore ...

buttons - yes, more direct might be best ...

shortcuts - now we know how to do them, and can think of many many we might implement, maybe the trick is just to keep an eye, and implement just the few that will help most often ...

NB: we're already using the few we have created quite a lot - and those created on my 'phone, have been transferred also onto my wife's 'phone, without me asking ... not complaining, but how does that happen ?

Cortex update - have now updated, and no change ... ie: GET & POST work via Postman, only GET works via Applescript ... logic implies problem lies in Applescript ...

taps / water ... we have cold & warm outlets, each with an associated Coastform no-touch sensor ... feed to the bath is tripled and, when bath is being filled, we pause it while water is required elsewhere ... also, we have a Cleaning Mode, to block signals while house-chore cleaning is going-on ... our sensors command hot & cold individually, but could also be together, with combinations of short / longer / long waves used to signal whether hands or pans of buckets are what's needed to be filled ... plus, when we want our bath to be run, we have logic that first checks on available temperatures & warns accordingly - our ASHP + solar system is low in kW, as against gas boilers that are high in kW & so can manage fast response - big & wasteful as they are, they are soon to be banned ... there's a choice, too, of being prompted on relay activation or release - we went for the latter, because seemed more natural ...

Chris