How do you keep an eye on the used devices in your flows?

Questions & Help
1

Hello Community,

just a simple question: How do you keep an ey on the devices used in your flows?

Right now I have round about 140 devices used with Homey, they create over 400 possible status informations and round about 600 flows. (e.g. logging, sending to SQL, triggering etc.)

How do you track which device or which trigger of a device is used in which flow? Do you use a piece of Software to document you flows and to create a kind of list which trigger is used in which flow? Do you have a special logic in creating folders, device- and flow-names?

I simply don’t know anymore where a trigger is located. E.g. the light and motion sensor in the sleeping room triggers the coffeemaker, the coffeemaker is also triggered after time to shut off again or if the last household member leaves the house. So there are three possible triggers for the coffeemaker in this quiet simple example. Due to my folder structure (Roof, Basement, FirstFloor etc.) the triggers are located in different folders.

How do you solve this?

Regards
Andreas

2

I think it’s hard to create a good folder stucture and i miss description fields. (although that would probably not fix it)
My structure is build divided by type or device (+ location) and logical names.

ie: “Security \ Doorsensor Livingroom \ day \ DISARMED \ ACTIVATED - disable anti cat beeper for 3 minutes”
and “Security \ Doorsensor Livingroom \ day \ ARMED \ ACTIVATED - sound the alarm”

Hope this helpes…

3

Or just click the device in the mobile preview app and it shows which flows are involved.

1 Like
4

Ok, so what I use is a folder structure per device. And the different flows are in there, so for example I have a folder called: Lights - Kitchen

In the Lights - Kitchen folder I have flows:

  1. Turn on lights - motion
  2. Turn off lights - motion
  3. Turn on lights - Xiaomi button
    etc…

And what I use is Functions

I have a folder called _Functions, in the folder I have flows which trigger the actual device. For example:
A flow called: _Function: SHUTDOWN

With trigger:
This Flow is started

… Then:
Turn off - Lights Kichten
Turn off - TV
Turn off - Lights behind couch
etc…

Then when I want to shutdown with:

  • voice
  • motion
  • cube xiaomi
  • button xiaomi
    etc…

I use 1 of the above triggers

…then: Start Flow: _Function: SHUTDOWN

So when a device changes, all I have to do is change it once in the function flow :smiley:

So in the example above, you should also use a function for turning the lights off since you would actually want to turn the lights off individually

I hope this makes sense.

5

Hello Rocodamalshe,

thanks for your hint, this works as long as your Flows are not including a tag. I also want/need to know if the tag of another device ist used. E.g when lux of device a = x AND variable b = y

In this case I would know that device a is used as trigger but not that also variable b is used. You could do this with other tags to like saturation of a Hue bulb too, where there’s no direct trigger is available.

Regards
Andreas

6

@dENNtoet
@Michael

What I dislike on working with Folderstructures is the depth I would creat until I am where I need to be.
And thinking about the solution with folders, it won’t solve the problem, that a device or a trigger could be used in different folders such as my example with the coffeemaker (one flow in the folder for movement in the sleeping room, on in the folder for movement in the sleeping room, one in the folder for leaving household members, one in a folder with timecode and all for one device in the kitchen - the coffee maker or other way round all in the kitchen while the trigger is somewhere else)

Isn’t there a piece of Software for Flow-documentation, where I could visualise my devices and flows etc?

Regards
Andreas

7

So u want 1 click on a device and then see all flows which are involved AND all flows which containes tags from that specific device?

8

Hello Rocodamelshe,

not necessarily by clicking on a device, although this would be cool. I would already be happy about a third party tool showing me such an information. (even if i would have to type in all the informations in there by hand)

But, yes. I would like to know where the whole device is used or the “measurements”/tags of the device (thinking about apps like better logic or values eg. from a hue bulb not in the card options)

Regards
Andreas

1 Like