Zone Followers - Enhancement Request

[vpspr]

Hello,

I'm looking for an enhancement request to Zone Followers ...

Send Alert only when zone has been open/closed for x minutes ... i.e. send me an alert if the front door or garage has been left open for 10 minutes

Please respond if you also like/want this feature ... I think it would be useful to all and help cut down on server traffic.

Thanks,
Vik

[GrandWizard]

All I can do vpspr is put it "on the list". I'm trying to think how you would program that.

[vpspr]

I think this would be quite easy to program ... you already capture/display how long a zone has been opened/closed for under zone activity ... just looking to trigger an alert when a threshold has been reached on a particular zone.

Thanks,
Vik

[blakem]

I believe the zone timers of the Envisalink firmware locally record the time each zone was last closed and report periodically to the remote server. There is no timer for how long a zone is open, only the time from when it was last closed. That is why it is difficult to implement.

[vpspr]

got it ... i guess timers for zone open will first need to be added to the EnvisaLink firmware to implement this feature?

[K-Man]

Well, sort of. Zone follower events are generated in the Envisalink and therefore are in the firmware. We don't have as much flexibilty on the Envisalink side as we do on the back-end server side of things.

Zone Followers are somewhat tied to our unique Zone Timer feature that shows zone aging (patent pending) so while it is possible (it's just code right? ) to add a zone delinquency feature it would take up some very valuable code space.

We've talked about offloading zone timers and zone followers onto the servers, but this would strand some of the home automation community who don't use Envisalerts at all. It may still happen, and if it does, a zone delinquency feature would be an easy addition. After all, its just code right? (cowardly ducking beneath my desk awaiting the airborne wrath of the software guys)

[K-Man]

I actually got this wrong. Zone Timers record the time since a "closure", not an open, so it can't be done at all on the Envisalink itself.

[tlee]

Given the minimal additional cost of a microcontroller with a larger flash memory, it's hard to imagine why the features should be limited by code space.

It would also be helpful if there were an option for the zone follower events to be only sent when the system is armed.

Being able to send email alerts directly from the device instead of going through your company portal would also be desirable, to prevent future obsolescence if nothing else.

Providing a more detailed users manual would be helpful as well.

Well, sort of. Zone follower events are generated in the Envisalink and therefore are in the firmware. We don't have as much flexibilty on the Envisalink side as we do on the back-end server side of things.

Zone Followers are somewhat tied to our unique Zone Timer feature that shows zone aging (patent pending) so while it is possible (it's just code right? ) to add a zone delinquency feature it would take up some very valuable code space.

We've talked about offloading zone timers and zone followers onto the servers, but this would strand some of the home automation community who don't use Envisalerts at all. It may still happen, and if it does, a zone delinquency feature would be an easy addition. After all, its just code right? (cowardly ducking beneath my desk awaiting the airborne wrath of the software guys)