Homeseer Driver

This usage of http traffic would not be impacted by usage of multiple network subnets. Http traffic works well in a multi subnet universe or else Internet technologies would fail. Best example - and proof - is the Internet.

So, if this fails then it is a result of something else and would need further troubleshooting. Best for you to perhaps provide more details of your environment & what you are attempting to do.

Keeping in mind that I used HomeSeer for over 20 years, have done this sort of a thing before, but will admit that my past experience may not be 100% apple to apple comparison.

In my personal opinion, creating a driver would not be the best choice.    What about pushing data back and forth via MQTT?  Seems to me that this would present better options that perhaps would benefit more people. More than just HomeSeer users.   Have not discussed this with David, but to me this seems like a better choice…

Do you use MQTT in HomeSeer?   Or do you use Node Red in HomeSeer? 

In my opinion, if Allonis was to invest development/engineering time then these two technologies would be the best approaches and benefit the most amount of people in a cross-platform basis. Again, all the pieces may not be ready today, but if you are familiar with MQTT and/or useage of Node RED in HomeSeer then to get this to work with myServer would not be the end of the world. 

I do not have a HomeSeer environment anymore even though I have 3 licenses. So, will need you to invest time on the HS side to get that working. We can then work on some plumbing to make it work with - perhaps - little development on Allonis’ part. 

If we go down this rabbit hole, what would be the first function to try? The second to try, etc? I can theorize myself, but I wouldn’t be doing this for me, so asking to eliminate subjectivity. 

Thoughts?
 

Hey Krumpy,
Thanks for the response. Since I am a work from home software engineer, I have a very different network setup then most usual houses. In my limited time troubleshooting I found out that HS4, running on Linux anyway, does not accept the local networks without password option if they are not /24 for some reason. Also in testing, it will respond with a unauthenticated message to a curl request from php even with the username and password fields from the separate network yet work fine with the same command on a box on the /23 network. So definitely not a Allonis issue. I am just using a HA instance I have for now to control as I have to invest some time into learning MQTT and NodeRed better. (Too many languages and protocols to keep up with)

But on to the Homeseer Driver part. In my scenario, most in my house use alexa to turn on the projector and then will grab a remote. I have HS4 controlling the state of all my equipment and setting variables to whats in use. It would be nice to query those, and then be able to set the remote to the right page based on what they are actually seeing. Maybe using a script that runs when the remote is picked up and wakes up? Although Im not sure that scenario is possible, havent checked yet.  Also vice/versa for when the remote is used. So i would think just simple Device control/ status of device polling would be the main ones needed.

I already have the lights controlled using HA, but am only really running the HA instance for this and one other app that doesn't play well with HS4. I know HA is the new controller every one likes, but I have been on HS4 for like 12 years and have so many things working perfectly, I keep trying HA but dont see the need to change, as the time I would have to invest doesn't really offer me benefits I can see. I am more than comfortable finding work arounds for things like this, and know HS4 users on Allonis remotes probably aren't  that large a number to require the effort needed at this time.

Need to strive to have everything event driven in terms of data exchange. Polling is slow and potentially inaccurate.

MQTT and Node Red are tools, and not necessarily a plug & play solution. Allonis may need to extend support of these to fully make this a viable solution. Need to look at all of this from an architectural perspective whereas myServer, Home Assistant, and HomeSeer are technology hubs whereas MQTT and Node Red are the “connectors” between dis-similar systems.

Many years ago I wrote a plugin between HomeSeer and myServer. It was well received, but stopped working once HS switched to .Net. I sold my house and have switched to Home Assistant and myServer exclusively. I no longer have a need for HomeSeer. Was stuck with a fully working HS3 infrastructure and the easiest path for me to upgrade was to  sell the house and start fresh with different control systems. Well, I also got rid of snow, mosquitoes, and other undesirable things as well. 

What is your lighting system? Insteon/ZWave/ZIGBEE or perhaps X10? Keeping in mind that it is easy to integrate ZIGBEE and ZWAVE to use MQTT as each of these natively will publish data to the MQTT broker. See zigbee2mqtt and zwave2mqtt….  Once there, ANYTHING that understands MQTT can use that data. This is why I embrace MQTT! Potentially will even start converting everything such that MQTT is the “database” for our technology universe. Plus Microsoft .NET, python, etc, etc all support MQTT. So your scripting engine could become your native programming language of choice rather than be stuck in any one control system.

If you do start to work in MQTT then I highly recommend building an organized namespace. Like DNS on the Internet, create a tree structure that makes sense for you.

Not a big deal:
For example if you have three houses and your name is Jones then something like this keeping in mind that this is only one example of many possibilities. You get the drift even though I represented only two of the houses. Since you will have multiple “master bedrooms” - one in each location - it is important to start thinking about organization or else you will have a mess. There are other ways to organize as well and this was just one example. :

Jones/LosAngeles/HomeSeer/
Jones/LosAngeles/myServer/
Jones/LosAngeles/HomeAssistant/
Jones/NewYork/myServer/

I currently use a mix of Zwave and ZIgbee. Yeah Im with you on the naming convention and the way to think about integrations. I turned on MQTT in Allonis for a few minutes to try to work out controlling my Zigbee2MQtt but didnt get anywhere in the short time I had to try. Stupid work expects me to work and not be playing around with my house just because they pay me..... the nerve of some people.

I was running node red a little when i had a Neeo remote after they sold out to Control4 making it a brick. I really have to start to rethink my setup now though. This is the first remote that actually will do the things I need, instead of me trying to find work arounds. I got so annoyed with the Neeo remote, i wrote an entire web based remote on a vm, and just had the remote forwarding json requests to work. (which surprisingly worked pretty well)

Although Allonis is still new,and not without some faults, the functionality for me is light years ahead of anything else out there. My main issue with MQTT in the short time as far as usability for less technical users has been the variation of what each device publishes, it would be great to have a little more of a standard off/on/dim commands.

To elaborate on what I said earlier in this thread, I use JSON commands to control Homeseer from the SmartRemote. I can control lights, set dimmer values, and run events. The problem is with doing a JSON query status, since what is returned needs to be parsed, and the limited scripting capabilities of Allonis make that task almost impossible.

I use an Android Tablet sitting on the wall for running the Homeseer HsTouch control program. It also runs the Tasker application, which has very capabile scripting capalities (and even allows for coding in Javascript). I set up a Web Server in Tasker that intercepts posts from my Ambient weather system, parses that post, and forwards the data to Homeseer. I already had the hardware, and it is running constantly, so no need for "Node Red" or any other hardware/system that requires maintenance.

I also have Tasker code for parsing the Homeseer query status response for use within Tasker. So it would be easy to enhance the Tasker Web service to also allow it to query the status in Homeseer, and then give a custom response back to Allonis that does not need parsing.

I know that this is a completely different direction than what has also been suggested. But it works quite well for me, and I think its a simplier way of doing it.

Give me an example of what you’re trying to parse and the command that you execute to do this:

The problem is with doing a JSON query status, since what is returned needs to be parsed, and the limited scripting capabilities of Allonis make that task almost impossible.