Hood fan and light control (Thermador VCIN48GWS) #2
Comments
Hood appliances are probably the only ones that do have reasonable HomeKit mappings. Unfortunately, I don't have a Home Connect Hood, and there isn't a simulator provided at https://developer.home-connect.com/simulator. This means that I am unable to test any support that I add. I could try coding something, but you would need to test and debug it. Looking at the API documentation Hoods support two different types of light: Presumably it is the first of these that your Hood has...
Both of those should already be supported as described in the README. The Additionally,
For the dishwasher they are:
Once again, Apple's Home app is more limited - it only shows the numeric label for these triggers. However,the Eve and Home+ apps show their names which makes them easier to use. If these don't work with your appliances then please provide the log output. Make sure that you run homebridge in debug mode (i.e. launched with
Unfortunately that would not be of any use. The Home Connect API uses |
|
There is now some prototype support for hoods in version 0.5.0 (c902042). This attempts to support the fan and functional light. As mentioned above, I am unable to perform any testing of the hood support, so this version is likely to have serious problems. Please thoroughly test:
For anything that does not work as expected please provide the log output (in debug mode, The current code is a bit of a hack to get some quick feedback about how the hood appliances behave. It needs to be rewritten, e.g. to query the supported programs and their options and to only present appropriate services, characteristics, and ranges. Based on your description my expectation is that with your model the fan speeds will map to 0-80% in HomeKit, with 100% being unsupported. Let me know how you get on... |
|
Thanks - That was a quick response! Let me try it out and get back to you. |
|
I have just released version 0.6.0. There are a lot of changes under-the-hood, but the main functional difference is that it now attempts to autodetect the type(s) of light supported by Hood appliances. |
|
haha!! just saw this - and I had updated to 0.5.0 after I wrote but will now update to 0.6.0 to try it out. will keep you posted. thanks! |
|
Just spotted a small bug in the fan control. When starting the manual program it incorrectly sets |
That should now be fixed in version 0.7.0. This version should also autodetect the fan capabilities (number of power levels and whether it has an auto mode). This version always attempts to start a program to set the fan speed and mode. I suspect that this might fail if the fan is already running, so please let me know (and provide logs, with debugging enabled). |
thoukydides
changed the title
thoukydides
changed the title
|
I didn't get a chance to test anything out yesterday but just saw the 0.8.0 update so will grab that. I should have time today to test it out. Thanks again! |
|
Just installed 0.8.0 and did get an error on startup for the first time but looks like it is still running the plug-in. See below (5th from the bottom): [Homebridge] [12/30/2019, 11:23:14 AM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Program inactive; 0 seconds remaining |
The only thing that error should affect is the creation of Switch services to allow programs to be started on your Oven Left. Everything else should operate as intended. You should be able to test the Hood fan and light control, as well as starting/stopping programs on your Dishwasher, and monitoring programs on your Oven Right. Curiously, that The log that you provided does not have debugging enabled, so only provides limited information. As requested in my earlier responses, for anything that does not work as expected please provide the log output (in debug mode, |
|
I just noticed from your original comment that Oven Left and Oven Right are both the same model (Thermador Oven PRD486WDHU/01), and both were switched off, which makes it particularly odd that one returned the list of supported programs but the other returned an error. Can you think of any difference that might be relevant, such as one having remote start enabled but the other not? |
|
I will turn debug on - I just wanted to send you a quick log of Homebridge starting up and getting those errors since those were the first errors I have seen on start up with your plugin. I am testing out the hood light/fans now and documenting some idiosyncrasies to reply to in a bit. As for the oven - you are correct. My model PRD486WDHU which you mentioned has a main oven (right) which has support for remote start and also a smaller side oven (left) which does not support remote start. Not that you need to look through the User Manual for it but page 11 here shows you what the range looks like with the 2 ovens. Page 38 talks about the HomeConnect features of the main oven (right) |
Thank you. I wasn't expecting the Hood control to work perfectly first-time. Neither the simulators nor my own physical appliances operate quite how I would expect based on the API documentation (or even the same as each other). I look forward to your feedback.
OK, that sort of makes sense... although I would have expected the API to either not advertise the left oven at all, or to return an empty list of programs in that case. There does not appear to be anything obvious in the API that can be used to determine that the left oven does not support programs, so I don't think there is any alternative to issuing the request and receiving the error. I have contacted the Home Connect developer support to ask about this error, but unless they provide a useful response I probably won't do anything about this. Other than the entry in the log file the current behaviour is perfectly safe and should not affect any of the plugin's other functionality. |
|
Did some testing on the Hood/Fan only to start. The fan turns on and off but I can't adjust the speed. Also, you are kind of right in regards to if the fan is already on before going into the app or using Siri to turn it off, it won't turn off. I got it to turn off after trying to turn off the button 3 times. I was able to reproduce that issue every time the fan was on prior to turning it on with Siri/HomeKit. The light turned on fine but the weird thing was - sometimes even though the app showed the dimmer as off, the light would still be on at 10% brightness. Sometimes it would go off when turning it all the way off, but most of the time it would stop at 10% brightness and looking at the app, it would think it was off. I'm not sure what the circle button below the light dimmer is for? I pressed it but it didn't seem to do anything. Also, as you can see in the UI screenshots, it says there is an unconfigured button but I don't see anything that is unconfigured? I have included the debug and tried to remove any of the other plugin debug info so you don't have to be distracted. Let me know what you think. Thanks! |
|
Thank you @JerGitHub for this useful feedback. The log file is especially helpful, so starting with that...
Looking at the log, the fan speed changes did actually work (which is a pleasant surprise because I was not expecting it to work): The problem is that there are two overlapping requests:
Both requests are attempting to start the same These requests completed in reverse order, resulting in the fan speed being increased, but then immediately being returned to its previous speed. Home Connect events are received confirming that the speed was really changed twice in quick succession. The change that I am planning to defer and serialise Home Connect actions in response to multiple HomeKit characteristics changing should fix this problem. (Of course, the other change to try updating program options without starting a new program could break it again...) By the way, does your fan support Automatic Mode and/or Delay Shut Off? I could not see any evidence of either being used in the log.
I think this is a completely different issue. It looks like operating the appliance locally locks out the Home Connect API for a period of time afterwards. There is nothing that I can do about that; it is a Home Connect limitation.
HomeKit treats On and Brightness as separate characteristics for a Lightbulb. Apple's Home app combines both of these into a single slider. For most of its range it controls the brightness; the minimum brightness for the Hood functional light is 10%, so the slider range is 10-100%. However, when the slide is pulled right to the bottom (or slightly below) it controls the power instead and shows the symbol of a bulb with a line through it. I suspect that the inconsistent behaviour that you are seeing is due to the issue described above, where the actions triggered separately by the Brightness and On characteristics changing overlap. It should behave more predictably once I fix that.
For coloured lights the Home app shows six circles below the slider to quickly change the colour - five with preset colours and one that can be edited. For simple on/off lights it just shows a switch instead of a slider, and there are no circles underneath. The Hood functional light supports brightness control, but not colour. I don't have any dimmable lights without colour control so cannot test this. However, my guess is that the Home app is either adding a single circle to select a preset brightness, or is just putting a dummy placeholder so that it can use the same layour as for lights with colour control. Either way, this is a Home app specific issue that is nothing to do with this plugin.
That is the Stateless Programmable Switch service that the plugin uses to report events. In the case of a Hood there is a single Stateless Programmable Switch that is used to generate an automation trigger from the You should see two separate tiles for the Hood appliance within the Home app. One is the Switch tile that you have been using that has the fan and light controls. The second one will be paler with an icon of a square with a circle inside. That will show a BUTTON 1 with Single Press and Double Press that can be used to trigger automations. Unless you want to trigger an automation when the fan switches off then you don't need to do anything with this. |
If I fake a Hood then I get one circle underneath the fan speed control slider (which switches between manual and auto mode) and six underneath the ambient light slider (to quickly select different colours). However, there are no circles underneath the functional light slider. |
|
Version 0.9.0 contains all of the changes that I described above. |
|
Happy New Year! And thanks for all of this. I just grabbed 0.9.1 and will test it out in debug and provide feedback. Let me see if I can answer and/or comment on what you wrote above.
I definitely see this lag and even see it within their own Thermador HomeConnect app as well. When I get a chance to test 0.9.1, I will let you know how this performs.
My fan has both Auto Mode and Delay Shut Off mode. I have included screenshots below. I didn't test any of that in debug mode but I can for 0.9.1 and send you the debug logs.
I'll definitely test this and let you know if it is fixed. Thanks for the explanation - that makes complete sense. Also, I noticed in the Thermador HomeConnect app that the slider for the light does not go below 10% either, so then I was thinking that's why it was stuck at 10% even when the UI was showing the symbol with a line through it meaning it was off. Your explanation makes more sense so hopefully it is fixed in 0.9.1.
I had noticed this second icon but didn't think it did anything and thought it was just a status and/or a stateless switch that didn't have a function. Now looking into it, I see the single and double press. I will have to set something up and test it - thanks! Thanks again for all of this - this is great stuff!
|
|
This wasn't debug mode so I will get more logs for you but just realized I updated to 0.9.1 while writing the reply above, and was using the Thermador HomeConnect app to grab screenshots for you. Looks like whatever I did in the Thermador HomeConnect app killed homebridge. I didn't realize it until I just went to make sure everything was running after I updated to 0.9.1. See below: [Homebridge] [1/1/2020, 2:34:58 PM] [HomeConnect] [Hood] Active and program running |
In that case, the circle that you see underneath the sliders is almost certainly a toggle between manual and auto mode for the fan. It is nothing to do with the lightbulb. You should be able to confirm this by looking at the Homebridge log when pressing the circle. This is one of the many examples of Apple's Home app having a poor user interface. I strongly recommend using a third-party HomeKit app instead. Elgato's Eve app is free, so there really is no reason not to use it.
I can see where this error is being thrown, but cannot immediately spot why it would happen, but will take a closer look this evening when I get home from work. Hopefully a log with debug enabled will help... |
I have tried, but an unable to either reproduce that error or spot anything that might cause it. I will investigate further when you provide a log with debug enabled. |
|
Sorry - haven't had a chance to test yet. Will try to get to it today and send it over. I was able to get it to stop homebridge again when using the Thermador HomeConnect app so I'll try and capture when it happens and what I was doing. |
|
Version 0.10.0 logs some additional information that may help with diagnosing the Please let me know how you get on. |
|
Thanks - just grabbed 0.10.0 and started it up without debug on and received a few new HAP warnings I hadn't seen before that I thought I would pass along below. I'm going to start testing everything now in debug and let you know what happens. [Homebridge] [1/4/2020, 3:19:47 PM] [HomeConnect] Adding new accessory 'Hood' |
Ah interesting! Sorry I haven't had a chance to test - crazy week at work. Will hopefully get to testing the latest today or tomorrow. |
Further feedback from Home Connect developer support:
|
|
Good to know we are finding bugs in their SaaS apps! I still haven't had a chance to test but will report back once I do. |
Latest from Home Connect developer support:
@JerGitHub, if you have any feedback on this issue then I will pass it back to the Home Connect team. |
|
Sorry I have been MIA. Finally had a chance to try out the latest home-connect 0.14.0 Unfortunately, it looks like we took a step backwards. Now the hood fan doesn't work at all when using the app or Siri. The hood light ("Functional Light" button) still works perfectly though! The only time the fan turns on is by using the "Hood Power Button" in the 4 toggles within the Hood accessory in the Home app (screenshots attached). This just turns the fan on and off. I cannot use the "Hood Fan" button to control fan speed as before. The "Hood Fan" button does not turn on the fan either if I just go straight to that button - there is no action sent in the logs to homebridge when I use the "Hood Fan" button either. The last button "Hood Functional Light" has the same issue as the "Hood Fan" button as well. It does not do anything when pressed and does not post any action/event in the homebridge logs to show I pressed or slid the slider when used. Hopefully the logs will be helpful in determining what is going on. Thanks! |
No problem. I really appreciate the time you take to test this plugin and provide very helpful feedback.
Looking at the log, the plugin’s fan control failed very early during its initialisation due to a stupid error that I introduced when tidying up the code as part of an unrelated change. Unfortunately, this error stopped any of the fan functionality from being enabled. 😞 Really sorry about that. At least it will be trivial to rectify. The power switch and light are handled completely independently so are unaffected by this screw-up.
That’s encouraging. 😌 |
Should be rectified in v0.15.0. |
|
ha! OK - glad to see you knew right away what the issue looks to be. Let me try 0.15.0 out and report back. Thanks! |
|
Thanks @JerGitHub. I look forward to seeing whether the new version works... On the plus side, it looks like the changes that I made to improve error handling worked well. Earlier versions of the plugin would have logged an unhelpful message unrelated to the actual error cause, and all Hood functionality (and any appliances enumerated after it) would have failed completely. This time it logged the actual problem, and all functionality other than the fan control (and remaining duration, which is added to the Fan service) continued to work. |
|
Unfortunately, running into the same issue as 0.14.0. Fan won't work via Home app or Siri. The only time the fan turns on is by using the "Hood Power Button" in the 4 toggles within the Hood accessory in the Home app. This just turns the fan on and off. I had tried this on 0.15.0 and ran into the same issue but didn't tell you since I didn't have a chance to set it to debug mode. I just updated to 0.16.3 and tried again with the same issues as well. Same exact tests and results as my 0.14.0 note above. #2 (comment) |
|
That’s very disappointing. Based on a quick look at the log this is a new problem parsing the fan programs returned by the appliance... but the net result is the same, i.e. the fan speed handling failed to initialise. Unfortunately nothing obvious is leaping out as the cause, so I will look at it more carefully this evening. Thank you @JerGitHub for your patience trying this again, and for the very helpful log file. |
|
OK, just had an idea about the cause. To improve the handling of programs for all other cooking and cleaning appliance I split the function that reads the program details into two separate functions, but had not updated the fan speed code to use both of them. The net result is that it is only retrieving the list of programs but not their supported options... so it inevitably breaks when trying to parse the options. |
|
Fingers crossed for 0.16.4... |
|
ha! ok - here goes....give me a little bit to try it and get back to you. thanks! |
|
Sorry - haven't had a chance to grab logs but the hood light isn't working anymore - that's the bad news. The good news is the hood fan looks to be fixed! Will grab logs and post later today.This is on the latest 0.16.7 I grabbed when I saw there was an update. |
I would guess that it is most likely to be due to a change in v0.16.7 the code that deals with lights. If you have the opportunity to try v0.16.6 then I would be interested in whether that is also broken.
Yeah! Finally... :-) |
|
HomeBridge Logs 2-9-2020.txt I have to figure out how to revert back to v0.16.6 using HOOBS. I started using HOOBS at the end of last year because I like the UI and ease of use from a web interface. It's good at abstracting the details but not so good when you need to get advanced and revert to an older plugin it seems! |
|
I think that I have spotted the bug that I introduced in v0.16.7. Don’t worry about v0.16.6. I don’t use HOOBS myself - I prefer to manage everything manually. I took a quick look at what would be required to integrate this plugin with it properly, but it doesn’t look feasible. Unfortunately, it’s configuration system isn’t particularly good - it forces plugins to use a particular non-standard and inflexible configuration structure that is incompatible with other tools. Even worse, it attempts to use the schema created for homebridge-config-ui-x, doesn’t pick up the dynamically generated replacement schema, and throws half of it away anyway. |
The log did confirm what I suspected: The plugin was correctly reading the supported settings, which included the controls for the functional light. However, it then failed to read the details of those settings but instead just claimed that the functional light is not supported. This was caused by a bug in the code that avoids asking for details of unsupported settings. Should be fixed in v0.16.8. |
|
All fixed in v0.16.8 - both hood fan and hood light working via Siri and the Home app. Thanks! One question since I don't know if this is possible - not sure if this is a Siri/Homekit limitation but could you make the plugin work so if you say: If not, no big deal. Just wondering if that's possible. As for HOOBS - I agree with you. I used to do everything via CLI but I saw HOOBS v3.x new UI and liked what I saw and wanted to give it a try. I like it so far but I still debate throwing it out and going with homebridge-config-ui-x. I don't blame you for not writing a "certified" plugin for HOOBS either. No real need. All "non-certified" plugins work perfectly with it since it is homebridge and all. Time to test out the dishwasher and oven part of your plugin - I haven't focused on that since you were helping me with the hood and lights which we use every day. Thanks again! |
Wonderful! Sorry that it took so long to reach this stage. I really appreciate your patience, clear feedback, and helpful log files.
Sorry, no. You can, however, use HomeKit defines the
I will close this bug now since the hood support appears to be working. However, if you find any new problems - with either the hood or dishwasher/oven support - then please raise separate issues for them. |
|
No need to apologize to me - you are doing me a huge favor by releasing this and tweaking it and taking feedback to make things better. I appreciate all your work! As far as the speed characteristics, that makes sense. I'm good with the way it is, but thought I would ask. Thanks again and I will test out the dishwasher and oven and give you feedback. |
First off - Thanks for getting this going!
I hooked this up to homebridge and HomeKit without any issues and it is running fine.
Now that it is hooked up, I wanted to try some basic things out but no such luck. I read the other issues thread and understand your thoughts around Apple having not defined HomeKit services and characteristics that are particularly suitable for these sorts of appliances.
However, I have a connected hood vent and would like to control the fan (0 thru 4 speeds - 0 = off and 4 is the highest) and the lights (dimmer control). (see screenshots) I figure these services are defined in HomeKit already so was hoping it would be possible to start there with this plug in.
It would be nice to know if my connected dishwasher is on or if the cycle has ended. And if my connected oven is on or not. But I am OK with trying to get the hood vent above working first!
I am not an AppDev coder but I am a tinkerer. If you need me to TCPDUMP and grab PCAPs from the Thermador HomeConnect app to help out or have any ideas what I can do to help, I am up for helping out. Here is my homebridge output when your plugin loads so you can get see the model numbers and the options that show up.
Let me know your thoughts when you have a sec.
Thanks!
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:27 PM] [HomeConnect] Home Connect authorization token saved
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] Adding new accessory 'Hood'
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Hood] Thermador Hood (E-Nr: VCIN48GWS/01)
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] Adding new accessory 'Oven Left'
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Left] Thermador Oven (E-Nr: PRD486WDHU/01)
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] Adding new accessory 'Oven Right'
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Thermador Oven (E-Nr: PRD486WDHU/01)
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] Adding new accessory 'Dishwasher'
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Dishwasher] Thermador Dishwasher (E-Nr: DWHD660WPR/01)
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Hood] Connected
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Left] Connected
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Connected
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:28 PM] [HomeConnect] [Dishwasher] Connected
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:29 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Inactive
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:29 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Door closed
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:29 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Inactive
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:29 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Door closed
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:29 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Left] Inactive
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:29 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Left] Door closed
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:30 PM] [HomeConnect] [Dishwasher] Door open
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:30 PM] [HomeConnect] [Dishwasher] Inactive
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:30 PM] [HomeConnect] [Hood] Off
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:30 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Right] Off
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:30 PM] [HomeConnect] [Oven Left] Off
[Homebridge] [12/27/2019, 6:09:31 PM] [HomeConnect] [Dishwasher] Off
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: