1.6.0
released 2021-09-30 |
The firmware 1.6.0 for P44-LC/AC devices (and 2.6.0 for P44-DSB) focuses on extendability and flexibility to create advanced applications.
It now allows integration with services and 3rd party hardware all completely within the P44-xx device itself, with no external dependencies or tools needed, and thus suitable for long-lived installations. The complete customized setup of a P44-DSB/P44-LC/AC device can be downloaded and archived as a single file, and can be restored easily to the original device or a replacement device when needed.
To see what can be done with a P44-DSB/LC device beyond the usual, find a few examples here.
Of course, despite all the new possibilities, the P44-DSB/LC remains as simple to use as before, integrating DALI, EnOcean and hue devices into digitalSTROM with a few clicks.
General Recommendation for updates: before updating, please always use the "Download configuration backup" button to download a backup of your device's configuration.
Improvements since production version 1.5.0
Web Interface
- Speed: Significantly improved speed, especially noticeable with interactive sliders (output channel settings such as brightness, color) which are now way smoother than before.
- Caching: Complete overhaul of internal web server configuration to prevent caching problems and the occasional "Ajax -1" error that sometimes occurred (which was harmless, but ugly).
- More info: Device and vDC Info dialog now has a "Technical details" section with extra information and a link to open a separate device/vdc property tree window.
- Visual feedback: Buttons that trigger an action (such as testing a scene script) will now light up to confirm when the device has actually started executing the action. This helps especially when debugging setups with flakey wifi connection.
DALI
- Tunable white lights: Support for non-DT-8 tunable white lights providing one dimmer channel for brightness, and a second channel for color temperature (warm to cool).
Scripting
- Scripted custom devices: while customer defined devices were already possible for a while using the external device API, this release now allows creating custom hardware and service integrations entirely on-device using p44script. While this is an advanced feature that needs some programming skills, there are some ready to use examples available. Things that can be done with scripted custom devices are, for example:
- Many new functions: file access with readfile() and writefile(), numerical range transform with maprange(), ord()/chr() for working with binary strings, httprequest(), urlencode() and websocket() for accessing complex APIs, globalvars(), localvars(), contextvars(), globalhandlers(), contexthandlers() for introspection and debugging, digitalio(), analogio(), dcmotor() for working with directly connected hardware (P44-DSB-X and custom P44-xx devices only).
- JSON objects: now JSON object's field names can now be accessed using numeric subscript (obj[0] returns name of first field in obj).
- External access: the device's JSON API has a "scriptapi" endpoint, which can be used to implement custom API in p44script using the webrequest() event function and its member answer() for responding to web requests.
- Threads: thread-local variables can be defined using the threadvar keyword and are implicitly used in as clause of on() and catch(). For thread coordination, new functions signal(), lock() exist.
- Documentation: in addition to the built-in script short reference, p44 tech docs now provide a lot of information and examples for all the many advanced applications p44script can enable.
- Logging: much better display of context where script-related things happen, incuding complete call chain when scripts call functions defined in other scripts. Enhanced log() function now allows formatting like format().
- Debugging: Pretty-printed JSON results in Read-Execute-Print/REPL (repl.html) and tweak (tweak.html) screens help inspecting API results, lrgraphics status() info etc.
Standalone Controller (P44-LC only)
- Dimming: after turning on light via scene call, next dimming action with a single button will dim down (tried to dim up before, which usually makes no sense after turning on).
- Mobile Website: Optimized Lights tab for better usability on small screens. All controls are now reachable even on a small phone screen (in landscape mode).
- Triggers: now can set additional trigger modes. By default, triggers fire when the condition expression changes from false to true. Extra modes can be used to fire when expression result becomes true OR false, or when the expression value changes at all (not only boolean values) or even on every evaluation.
- Custom Actions: Triggers now have an option to appear as button on a separate web page (actions.html). With this, custom functionality can made accessible in a simple to use way for end users.
Support for custom device types (P44-DSB-X and custom P44-xx devices only)
- SmartLED chains/p44lrgraphics: Now supports setting LED chip type and layout (RGB,GRB,…) in p44script using addledchain(). The LED refresh rate can be changed using setledrefresh() programmatically.
- LEDchain devices: Simplified creating text, life, image based lights.
- "p44features": this is a set of rather specific hardware drivers, which now can be used from p44script. For example if you have Swiss Railway split flap modules, there is a splitflap feature to control these.
- WiFi: For RaspberryPi 3 based P44-DSB-X devices, WiFi can be configured by Cmd/Ctrl-Shift clicking "Edit Network Settings...").
- Hardware I/O: digitalio() and analogio() allow accessing GPIO pins, PWM outputs, I2C and SPI peripherals such as A/D converters or port expanders in p44script.
- Motor control: dcmotor() provides all functionality for bidirectional DC motors with current measurement for detecting end stops and/or end contacts, with smooth ramp up/down control (suitable H-bridge driver and A/D converter connected to PWM, GPIO, SPI/I2C required).
General
- Platform: updated to OpenWrt 19.07.8
- Other: of course, many detail improvement and bug fixes…
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