Setup a timer for alert if Garage Door is open for xx

I'm wanting to setup a notification if my garage door is open for an hour. I've got two sensors on the door. One that reads when the door reaches the top of it's travel which is means it's open, the other is at the bottom of it's travel when it's closed. I know I can do it with one but what the hell, I've got the input sensors with the EZIO2X4, why not use them My thought was to set up a variable (DoorTime) and when it's open have it true, closed = false. Then on the open trigger I'd put a action that would check the DoorTime variable, it it's true then send an alert if false do nothing. Delay it an hour and voila I have my timer. Well, I can't find a routine that will check the variable at an interval after a specified start point (when door is opened) I suppose you can do that with an apple script but I'm not that apple script literate. Is there a simple way to do this?

Just for comparison, here's how I do the same thing with my garage door (though I only have 1 sensor for the door because I'm using an I/O-Linc. ).

When the binary (sensor) input is closed (true), the door is closed (opposite of your proposed variable state representations, though that's not really important). I set up a trigger to fire when the binary input becomes open, with a delayed action to send me an email telling me that the garage door has been left open too long. Rather than use a variable to keep track of the open state, or a script to check for the current door state before sending the email, I set up a second trigger that fires when the binary input becomes closed that uses the Remove Delayed Actions action for the door open trigger described above. Thus, the delayed email sending action initiated when the garage door was opened is canceled when the garage door closes.

This is what i used, scroll down:

http://www.perceptiveautomation.com/wik ... door_alert

[jay (support)]

You could use a timer (new in Indigo 6) for this as well - I may update the wiki page midd refers to above to reflect this option.

Roughly, you'd create a timer device with a default value of 1 hour. Create a Timer Expired trigger (under the Timers and Pesters Event) that watches for the 1 hour timer to expire and performs whatever notifications you want. Create a trigger that starts the timer when the door opens and stops the timer when the door closes.

Pretty much does the same thing the wiki article above describes but uses a timer object. The advantage I suppose is that you could more easily change the timer's run time (from another action) so for instance you could have it be shorter or longer depending on time of day. Doing that with the other solution would require writing AppleScript to modify the delay time.

The timer in beta 6 looks like the way to go. I created a timer device and gave it a 60 minute time. I created a trigger that starts the timer and created a trigger that stops the timer. All that looks good. I'm having problems with the Timer Expire trigger. I've created the trigger. I've set the type as Timers and Pester Event. The next line is " Event: - select event - " but the select event is ghosted with nothing to select in that field. How do I make my timer device an event so it can be selected?

[jay (support)]

That's a known bug in the latest build. We can't yet get a full build out to address it but if you send an email to indigo DASH support AT perceptiveautomation DOT com I'll email you a prerelease client that fixes the issue.

Will do (actually did )

I don't see device type "Timer" in the list when choosing new device. I looked in Virtual Devices too. Can you help?

[jay (support)]

Make sure the timers and pesters plugin is enabled: select the Plugins->Timers and Pesters->Enable menu item.

Client B11 is working great. One question, on the expire trigger I've put all the actions I want to happen when it expires. Last action I put in was to reset the timer to 15 minutes. My thinking is that timer will expire in another 15 minutes going through the actions again and then every 15 minutes until the door is closed. Once the door is closed it will go back to the initial 60 timer. Am I right in this thinking?

[jay (support)]

Seems right. Note that I believe there's another outstanding bug in b10 that requires you to use seconds when changing the default value of the timer (rather than minutes, hors, etc.). So when you set it to 15 minutes you'll want to actually set it to 900 seconds and when you want to set it back to an hour you'll want to set it to 3600 seconds. The fix is coming in the full b11 build coming in a day or two.

My "Timer Garage Close" is set to:
Type: Stop Timer (Timer Controls)
Device: Timer Garage

When that interrupts the timer won't it go back to the default 60 minutes? Should I change the default to 900 seconds? Actually it's a moot point if the new built will come out in a day or two. I doubt the garage will be open for over an hour in that time

[jay (support)]

In order to change the timer value you'll need to do a Set Timer Start Value action and set it to 15 minutes (use the seconds workaround mentioned above until we release the next beta build) when the timer expires and restart it. Then, on your canceling trigger, you'd set it back to 1 hour. In other words, there is only 1 timer default value (default is probably a misleading word) - it just remembers that last value that you set the timer to.