I recommend against trying to do this in Rules if you can. This is going to be far easier to implement through a Python script (for example) than it will be through Rules. It probably can be done in Jython Rules but I’m not positive about that.
The problem comes from the fact that OH Rules are event driven and not state based. What event represents “I’m holding the button down, continue to dim the light”? There isn’t one, that’s a state (button is being pressed) . So one has to go to great lengths in Rules to rapidly poll the switch (100 msecs or less to get good human factors reaction times) and generate events out of the that rapid polling as necessary.
This sort of thing Rules are really poor at.
So I recommend moving that rapid polling to something outside of OH like a Python script. Then implement logic inside the script to detect each of these six states in the buttons and publish the proper events to OH accordingly (REST API or MQTT). For something like a long press, you will probably want to either use something like Rollershutter commands (UP, DOWN, STOP when button is released) or send periodic events while the button is being pressed.
so what you recommend is to create an Number Item: Livingroom_switch
which then receive commands 1 to 6 depending on what happens on the GPIO, the logic on what happens on GPIO either through python or inbuilt Jython…
for long press it could update the state of the Livingroom_switch every 200ms and the the rule will increas/decrese dimmer value with 5% everytime that happen:
so the rule will look like sth like this:
rule "LivingRoom switch"
when
Item LivingRoom_switch received command
then
switch(receivedCommand.toString ) {
case "1": {
loop through all members of livingroom lights and set to ON or color white if state is on otherwise OFF
}
case "2": {
loop through all members of livingroom lights and set to ON or warm white if state is on otherwise OFF
}
case "3": {
livingroom_scene.sendCommand(livingroom_scene.state+1) ' how to check if we reached max number of szenes and the loop back to 0?
}
case "4": {
livingroom_scene.sendCommand(livingroom_scene.state-1) ' how to check if we reached max number of szenes and the loop back to 0?
}
case "5": {
livingroom_dimmer.sendCommand(livingroom_dimmer.state+5) '
}
case "6": {
livingroom_dimmer.sendCommand(livingroom_dimmer.state-5) '
}
end
but has noone done anything similiar to this, this is a standard feature in many hardwired switches or phillips hue remote?
Essentially, though I would probably use a String Item and use human readable names for the events instead of numbers. Why add an additional mental translation step between numbers and what they mean when you can use a String whose meaning is self evident? And loss in performance or increase in resources will be unmeasurable in a home automation context.
I’d actually probably use a Rollershutter Item and let it implement the tight loop based on an UP/DOWN command.
OH really isn’t built well to handle processing Rules at 200ms increments. I worry about how evenly it can process the events coming in that fast. And the slightest problem will cause your Rules to grind to a halt for a time as you consume all your threads and Rules waiting to execute start to pile up.
This sort of thing is implemented all the time, but it’s not usually implemented in OH Rules. OH Rules are not well suited to implementing this sort of thing.
