Physical Switch behaves different from Item, conceptual problem

[boardboy (Bart)]

Hi,

I think I run into a problem where I miss some fundamental conceptual understanding.
I have been using OpenHab 2 for a while and I’m happy with it.

I bought a new Zigbee inwall switch, which is connected to a physical switch.
The attached light switches on and off when I use the physical button, and when I toggle the item on my sitemap (as expected)
In the thing configuration for the switch, I’ve created a link to another Zigbee wallplug which needs to be activated by the switch.
Now the item on the sitemap actually makes this work, however, the physical switch does not toggle the wallplug.
The logs show the same entry whether I use the physical switch or the item on the sitemap.

I’ve been looking at rules, but I think that is overkill, I probably miss a very basic concept.

Using OpenHab v2.5.9-1 and Conbee with Deconz as Zigbee gateway (2.05.81 / 14-9-2020)

Thanks for your help

[rossko57]

This might help with concepts, from a few minutes ago.
You can ignore the KNX part, that option is not available for zigbee.

Redirect received value to other channel

In general, Item commands are passed to devices by bindings. Device reports are turned into Item state updates by bindings. The separation is quite deliberate, otherwise every change would result in a whirling loop of death. There’s always exceptions though. We can link an Item to more than one device, and we might want this device to “follow” that device. Some bindings allow for this - KNX for example has xxx-control channel types, these will take an incoming device message and turn it in…

Sounds like a candidate for follow profile.

@boardboy

The logs show the same entry whether I use the physical switch or the item on the sitemap.

I’ll bet it does not - no command for poking pysical switch.

[boardboy (Bart)]

Thanks I’ll read that topic

@rossko57

I’ll bet it does not - no command for poking pysical switch.

It does, even the item in the sitemap gets updated to the switch state

[rossko57]

Show me!

[boardboy (Bart)]

How would I do that?

[rossko57]

Copy-paste the relevant lines from your events.log
Tell us what you did for that sample, e.g. poked UI or physical device.
A sample of both would be good.
Enclosing in code fences would be helpful

How to use code fences

We all have to type this content over and over and over. Here is a posting we can all point to when the topic comes up. Why use code fences? Because rules, sitemap, logs, and configs are all but unreadable when code fences are not used. When to use code fences? Whenever one is posting any sort of code, config, log, and any text where line wrapping, indentation, and using an equal spaced font makes the text more legible. How to use code fences? Use 3 backticks (```)... Or use <code>... …

[boardboy (Bart)]

Logs when using the sitemap:

2020-10-24 12:53:02.006 [ome.event.ItemCommandEvent] - Item 'sRearOutdoorLights' received command ON
2020-10-24 12:53:02.035 [nt.ItemStatePredictedEvent] - sRearOutdoorLights predicted to become ON
2020-10-24 12:53:02.083 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - sRearOutdoorLights changed from OFF to ON
2020-10-24 12:53:02.138 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - sRearShed changed from OFF to ON

Logs when using the physical button:

2020-10-24 12:55:01.868 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - sRearOutdoorLights changed from OFF to ON
2020-10-24 12:55:01.874 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - sRearShed changed from OFF to ON

Items:

Switch sRearOutdoorLights	"Buitenlicht Achter" 		(gNormalLights,gAll) {channel="deconz:onofflight:f2e1fe7f:588e81fffec0a51f01:switch"}
Switch sRearShed		"Licht aan Schuur"	(gNormalLights,gAll) {channel="deconz:onofflight:f2e1fe7f:680ae2fffea531ee01:switch"}

Sitemap:

Switch item=sRearOutdoorLights

[rossko57]

Okeydoke, thats great. As you can see no command is generated by poking at the physical device, as expected.
Difference between Item commands and state updates crucial here.

There is no sign of any attempt at cross-linking in what you have shown us.

[boardboy (Bart)]

So, how do I make that work then…
What concept am I missing?

[rossko57]

You’ll want an update of your “master” device to issue a command to your “slave” Item.

A rule triggered from change of master Item would be straightforward.

Or you do it with a follow profile. Add the master channel to your slave Item as well, but using a follow profile. This will listen for updates from the master, and convert to command to the Item. Now your normal slave channel gets a command to act on.

I’ve just noticed in your opening post you talk about linking Things - whatever that was, you’d best undo it.

[boardboy (Bart)]

And where would I configure this follow profile, this does sound what I want.

[rossko57]

I suppose you could look in the docs

Items

Or see if any other users have ever done such a thing

Two switches one light eg. staircase switch - rule

The follow Profile was made for this use case. It would look something like: Switch MyLight "My Light" <light> { channel="mqtt:topic:SwitchA:switch", channel="mqtt:topic:SwitchB:switch"[profile="follow"] } If done in a Rule, it can be made simpler in a number of ways. Go ahead and use more than one Rule rule "Switch A" when Item Switch_A changed then if(Switch_B.state != Switch_A.state) Switch_B.postUpdate(Switch_A.state) end rule "Switch B" when Item Switch_B changed then …

[boardboy (Bart)]

Great I got it working already, I was just impatient.
There is some latency in the follow, which made me think it didn’t work

Switch sRearOutdoorLights	"Buitenlicht Achter" 		(gNormalLights,gAll) {channel="deconz:onofflight:f2e1fe7f:588e81fffec0a51f01:switch",channel="deconz:onofflight:f2e1fe7f:680ae2fffea531ee01:switch" [profile="follow"] }

Where the first channel is the physical switch, the 2nd the plug.

Thanks for the hints!