QA design - event publish - push or pull

[gurpal2000 1]

Working on my first QA design and would like to see what approach has been taken for a scenario.

 

I already have an existing framework where an IP camera will happily publish a http event when motion detected. At that point I can create scenes etc.

I am in control of the framework code so can make that payload look like whatever I want. What can't change is the push style event.

 

Approaches:

1. create a http server inside a QA myself and take it from there (push)

2. re-use something that HC3 already provides out of the box (eg. API)? (push)

3. get the QA to listen (subscribe) to a broker (say mqtt) and simply get my framework to put events there (pub/sub)

4. get QA to poll the framework. bad. (pull)

 

I'm leaning towards (3) but (1) would have less moving parts. Option (2) would be even better - is there a way to push events from outside the box...?

 

(On other automation system, there was a concept of virtual devices that did just this, but I guess in our world that's what QAs are for)

 

thanks

Edited December 9, 2022 by gurpal2000

[gurpal2000 1]

Looks like I may be overthinking this a bit. I managed to find the API which could trigger a Scene (option 2). That would work!

Edited December 9, 2022 by gurpal2000

[jgab 2,055]

7 hours ago, gurpal2000 said:

Working on my first QA design and would like to see what approach has been taken for a scenario.

 

I already have an existing framework where an IP camera will happily publish a http event when motion detected. At that point I can create scenes etc.

I am in control of the framework code so can make that payload look like whatever I want. What can't change is the push style event.

Is it a HTTP POST command?

If you have complete freedom to make the url look what you want? can you add headers? then I would post a "/devices/<id>/action/<name>" with the payload structured as the argument. Then it will invoke your  QuickApp:<name>(arg) function...

You may need to add Authorisation and X-Fibaro-Version headers.

 

 

7 hours ago, gurpal2000 said:

 

Approaches:

1. create a http server inside a QA myself and take it from there (push)

It's not possible to open server sockets and listen to them from QAs... Closest is tcp-socket or web socket for 2-way communication but the connection needs to be initiated from the QA...

 

7 hours ago, gurpal2000 said:

2. re-use something that HC3 already provides out of the box (eg. API)? (push)

Yes, like the above if possible.

 

7 hours ago, gurpal2000 said:

3. get the QA to listen (subscribe) to a broker (say mqtt) and simply get my framework to put events there (pub/sub)

Would work but you need an extra part as you say....

7 hours ago, gurpal2000 said:

4. get QA to poll the framework. bad. (pull)

It kind of depends how often you need to poll - once every second could work.

 

[gurpal2000 1]

@jgab thanks for your insight! i am happy that i am on the right track so far.

WIll have a look at your API suggestion, yes, i can add headers and other things. FYI - it's Blue Iris already doing what I need (send stuff to Telegram) but i need to activate some lights and other things. For now, I'd rather let Blue Iris carry on (I know we can add IP Cams to HC3 too, but will try that at a later time).

Edited December 10, 2022 by gurpal2000