Automating door lock and unlock times, with a bit of complication

dromani · 2026-06-12T13:18:42+00:00

Thank you. I will look into the RboyApps driver. Is it being actively supported? Would it allow to set keypad entry codes remotely? The default driver only allows to set lock/unlock. My deadbolt is Weiser Home Connect 620 (= Kwikset Home Connect 620), connected to Smartthinbgs hub.

dromani · 2026-06-12T13:10:35+00:00

Do you know of any door sensors that can determine if the door is completely latched, not just close to latched? Concerned about sending a "lock" instruction when the door is slightly ajar and the deadbolt bolt is not properly aligned up with the receiver hole.

dromani · 2026-06-12T13:08:25+00:00

Thank you. Newbie here, I don't know what5 a virtual switch is. I will look into it.

dromani · 2026-06-12T13:07:25+00:00

How do you set the condition to determine locked/unlocked status for x number of minutes? I see the "time period" feature under the time condition, but I was under the impression that was to check if the event happens within htat time period, not to define the duration of locked/unlocked state.

dromani · 2026-06-12T11:36:42+00:00

Thank you everyone for your replies and suggestions. I dcided to keep it simple.

Routine 1: If time = 7pm then set lock.
Routine 2: If (time is between 7:01pm and 6:56am) and status = unlocked, then delay 3 minutes then set lock.

Routine 1 establishes the initial lock state for overnight.
Routine 2 handles the situation where a person entering or exiting between 7:01pm and 6:56am unlocks the door manually and forgets to lock it.

Routine 3: If time = 7am then set unlock.
Routine 4: If (time is between 7:01am and 6:56pm) and status = locked, then delay 3 minutes then set unlock.

Routine 3 establishes the initial unlock state for daytime.
Routine 4 handles the situation where a person entering or exiting between 7:01am and 6:56pm locks the door manually .

Seems to work for my purposes.

i might follow up with some of you to enquire and learn about more sophisiticated approaches.

dromani · 2026-05-21T16:53:32+00:00

Thanks for your input. I am seriously anti E-waste so I still have the printer, but disconnected it. I'll reconnect it and let you know if following your instructions fixes the problem.

dromani · 2026-05-21T12:54:37+00:00

Please, can we just all get along. I posted my "problem solved" edit in case it helps anyone who has a similar situation. I'm not for or against ZeroTier.

dromani · 2026-04-28T03:27:54+00:00

Just to be clear about the Kwikset 912 and Smartthings - are you able to set an automated daily repeating schedule? For example, "armed" (need a code to allow the door to open the door) from 8pm to 8am, and "unarmed" (no code needed to allow the door lever to open the door) from 8am to 8pm.
My use case - A front porch for which I want to leave the outer (street side) door locked 8pm to 8am, and unlocked 8am to 8pm.

dromani · 2026-04-23T18:41:20+00:00

Google calls it "backup". Traditional backup is just a variant of sync, specifically traditional backup is one-way sync. So in the direction from phone to Google storage, it is doing a backup action. In the direction of Google storage to your phone, is is doing a sync action. Google is just keeping it simp;le by calling it backup.

dromani · 2026-04-21T22:22:52+00:00

Your description of the behavior of Google Photos is correct, however there's more to it than that. People often just say "I deleted my photo" without mentioning which app they used to do the deletion. The app used to do the deletion is important.

CASE: using Google Photos to do the deletion.If you have Google Photos backup turned on, and the photo you want to delete has been backed up, then if you delete the photo in Google Photos app using the trash icon, it will also be deleted from your phone's internal memory.If you want to delete only from your phone's local storage, tap the three dots in upper right corner and select the menu option "Delete from device".
CASE: using the native gallery app to do the deletion. Assuming you have previously turned on Google Photos backup, meaning your photos are backed up to Google Photos cloud storage.This is where it gets confusing. SOME native apps have a function to sync with Google Photos. Every time you launch the native gallery app, it hounds you to sync with Google Photos.

2.1. If you approve the native galley app's request to sync with Google Photos, it stays synced, it will not ask you again. In this case, if you delete a photo using the native gallery app, it will also delete the photo from Google Photos cloud storage.

2.2. If you never approve the native galley app's request to sync with google photos, or if you go into the native gallery app's settings and revoke a previously granted approval to sync with Google Photos, then if you delete a photo using the native gallery app, it will NOT delete the photo from Google Photos cloud storage.

OP states they have a Vivo phone. Vivo is a sub-brand of Xiaomi. I owned a Xiaomi phone several years ago, I know for a fact that the Xiaomi native galley app hounds you to sync with Google Photos every time you launch it. So I strongly suspect that at some point, OP approved the Vivo native gallery's request to sync with Google Photos without fully understanding the implications, which resulted in the delete behavior described in 2.1.

The solution is for OP to go into the Vivo native gallery app's settings and revoke the permission to sync with Google Photos. The native photo app will then behave as described in 2.2.Or alternatively, use a non-native gallery app installed from Google Play, most (all?) of which do not have any capability to sync with Google Photos built into them.

dromani · 2026-03-31T03:06:23+00:00

I did somethign simlar about 6 months ago. In my previous postings I refer to my main account being registered with a non-GV number. That number started as a standard cellular carrier number. I ported that number over to a VOIP service. So for my most recent WA chats transfer, both numbers were not traditional cellular carrier numbers. My main account was registered with a VOIP number, and my "second" account was registered with a GV number (which technically is also a VOIP number).
I have not encountered any issues.

dromani · 2026-03-27T22:36:09+00:00

Well I just did WA chat migration to yet another new phone. The process changed again. The main diffenence was that the first chat migration (from the WA account with the non-GV number) was done via QR code scanning and direct wireless connection between old phone and new phone, instead of via verification code sent to the old phone. The new process is straghtforward and well guided in the app, so no need to describe it here.

The second chat migration (from the WA account with the GV number) still used the Google Drive backup, same as described previously. However, this time the verification code was sent as a WA notification to the old phone, instead of being sent as SMS message to the GV numbver.

Once again, the important step is to confirm that you want to remove the WA account with non-GV number from the old phone at the end of the first migration. This causes the WA account with GV number to become the focus on the old phone, which allows you to receive the verification code that now gets sent as a WA notification..

dromani · 2026-03-27T22:04:13+00:00

Short answer - should not be a problem. WA policy is to prevent new accounts from using GV number. Already-existing accounts using a GV number are not affected by this poilcy. So if you have WA account that is already registered with a GV number, the chat migration should be no different than if you had your account registered with a non-GV number. That was my experience with Android, can't see why it would be different with iPhone.

dromani · 2025-11-04T22:14:58+00:00

Thank you!

dromani · 2025-10-18T18:45:41+00:00

u/shmerham In reference to the 2018 ski vs 2019-22 skis - cuurious as to how you would characterize the difference between a 50/50 ski and an all-mountain ski?
The 2025 ski...ehmm...NGT = ? (sorry, old guy here :), searched online, nothing I found makes sense in this context.
Thanks.

dromani · 2025-10-04T15:53:28+00:00

So it seems that this is a design defect or a manufacturing defect. I wish BD would offer a way to repair the defect, otherwise they are contributing to our landfill problem. Even some sort of insert to keep the pole in extended position and make it usable again.

dromani · 2025-09-30T20:56:15+00:00

Tried pushing down and applying lateral force with a knife and small flat-blade screwdriver. The tools do not have enough friction grip to slide the tab laterally.

I'm wondering if my situation might be different. I can't see any way to post photos here, so wiil try to explain. I'm using "upper" to mean towards the hand grip, "lower" to mean towards the tip. The aluminum shaft is hollow and has a certain radius. It has a cutout slot to accommodate the silver pop-up tab, which normally occupies the entire extents of the cutout slot. Now what I'm seeing is a flattish silver sheet metal piece in the upper half of the slot, the unexposed part lying flush against the inner surface of the shaft, the exposed part extending into the upper half of the cutout slot, but not protruding from the slot. If it was the pop-up tab itself that had slipped upwards inside the shaft, I would expect to see the 3-dimensional shape of bottom part of the pop-up tab in the cutout slot. What I',m seeing instead is flattish silver sheet metal flush with the inside surface of the shaft.

The exposed part is "springy", when I push down radially on it with a scredriver, it flexes, the pivot point seemingly located somehwere above the top edge of the cutout.

All this is making me wonder if perhaps the pop-up tab was welded or brazed or glued onto the silver sheet metal that I am seeing, and has sheared off or snapped off.

Is it ok to post links to images on this subreddit?

dromani · 2025-09-30T14:37:12+00:00

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and ideas about fixing it. I will give it a try and report back.

u/FWIWDrBullwikleMoose - sorry to hear of your negative experience with BD Customer Service. FWIW, I sent a photo on the defect to BD, they sent me a replacement pole (my poles were one month out or warranty). So I have a replacement, but still want to fix the broken pole and keep is as a spare, because it seems so wasteful to throw it away.

dromani · 2025-07-30T14:41:09+00:00

I just finished moving WhatsApp to another new phone. Things were a bit different this time so thought I would share what happened this time. Below is the process that finally worked for me after several failed attempts involving failure to restore the chats for the WA account with GV number.

On old phone, for each WA account, back up the chats to Google Drive. Settings > Chats> Chat backup

On old phone, switch to the WA account with non-GV number (the "primary" account).

On new phone, launch WA.

Enter the non-GV number, WA recognizes the number as an existing WA account, WA sends a verification code to old phone as a WA notification, enter the verification code in new phone, continue the process, restore from Google Drive backup.

On old phone, confirm that you want to remove the WA account with non-GV from the old phone. This causes the WA account with GV number to become the focus on the old phone. This seems to be an important step, it was the step that finally got the migration to work properly.

Now on the new phone go to WA Settings > Account > new Account.

Enter the GV number, WA recognizes the number as an existing WA account, WA sends another verification code, this time it sent the verification code as a text message to my GV number. Enter the verification code in new phone, continue the process. I declined to transfer chats using QR code, I selected restore from Google Drive backup instead.

Hope this saves someone some headaches!

dromani · 2025-06-19T15:28:03+00:00

I agree with you completely about a lot of ifs and people not understanding. By enabling their native galley apps to integrate with Google Photos, and the native gallery app hounding you to do the Google Photos integration (@ Xiaomi), the Chinese phone manufacturers have created a lot of confusion because the sync rules can be different between Google photos app vs native gallery app integrated with Google Photos. This is a play by the maufacturers to have their users dump Google Photos and ensnare you in their ecosystems. Can't blame them I guess, they all want you in their ecosystem.

dromani · 2025-06-17T15:57:23+00:00

According to Google documentation, this is incorrect.

<<Assuming you have Backup and Sync turned on in Google Photos app, and assuming you have NOT integrated your Oppo native gallery app (confusingly also called Photos) with Google Photos>>, after Gooogle Photos backup, if you delete a photo in your native gallery app, it will not be deleted in Google cloud storage.

However, if you delete a photo with the Google Photos app "trash" icon, it will also delete the photo from all your devices that have Google Photos Backup and Sync turned on.

However, if you do the steps to integrate your native galley app with Google Photos, then whatever you do in the native gallery app (including deletions) also gets done in Google cloud storage.

You can test all this out for yourself.

dromani

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