RadioRA2 & WaitDriverReady

[gReatAutomation]

I wanted to ask if it is necessary to use the WaitDriverReady command when sending multiple commands via the Lutron driver.

With the help of IVB I've created variables (8 scenes) for all of my RadioRA2 lights (36) for each scene I have defined:

• Sunset
  
• Sunrise
  
• VisorHome
  
• VisorAway
  
• Evening
  
• Housekeeping
  
• AllOn
  
• AllOf
  

Examples of the boolean variables for one of the rooms:

• EventsLightingSunsetDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingSunriseDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingVisorHomeDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingVisorAwayDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingEveningDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingHousekeepingDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingAllOnDaughtersRoomRecessed
  
• EventsLightingAllOffDaughtersRoomRecessed
  

It was fairly painless process as I put everything in to Excel and then copied each set of scenes and pasted in to Ultraedit. From there, I just copy/pasted in to the CQC variables driver.

The VisorHome and VisorAway scenes are ones that are triggered events off of the RadioRA2 ButtonPress events for my Visor Control Transmitter.

I am asking about the WaitDriverReady because, for example, in my AllOn scene, I am going through all 36 RadioRA2 lights and turning them on.

Is it a good idea to use WaitDriverReady for each command where I am turning on a light?

[Dean Roddey]

WaitDriverReady just waits for the driver to come online, so you'd not use in that sort of situation. Generally speaking, you don't need any sort of delay when doing something like that. When the field write command returns, the device has already responded (in most drivers, some are too slow for that), which means it's ready to take another. If there are any inter-message minimum time requirements the driver should provide for that (and they tend to be quite small if at all, most of the time by the time the device responds it's ready for another.)

Of course there can always be unusual cases, where maybe writing to some field starts the device doing something internally, and it doesn't respond, but that's not typical. You could always stick in a small delay every four our five writes or something like that, just to be less abusive. But it'll make the process take that much longer.

Definitely, where possible, use any scene type support in the device itself. Those that support that generally can just send out one multi/broad-cast message that all of the appropriate lights respond to. I guess the RA2 doesn't support any scene definitions?

[gReatAutomation]

RadioRA2 has scene support, but that would be setting things up in two different systems: CQC and in the Essentials software. The benefit of doing it the way IVB laid out, is that you can create a config screen with a Variable CheckBox for each scene variable, allowing you to quickly change what each light does for each scene. Otherwise, it's a trip to Essentials to make the changes.

Anyone at home with access to the config screen can quickly and easily add a light to a scene via the config screen. Not so with Essentials.