Day Timer Using Node Red With Persistant Memory

I extensively use Node-red for my Home Automation projects. i am not a prgrammer by progession , but with help from various contributors i try to configure things according to my requirement . Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not :)

For one of my automation project i needed Timers which i can set it from the frontend Node _red UI across multiple Day of week . There are avaiable projects wherein contributors have used the Node-red- contrib files for his purpose . But one basic thing which i never found is how to retain the time setup even after the node-red restarts ( owing to system crash etc...) . I wanted something which would resume from the last working stage and contniue thereafter

This need made me work upon this project .

There has been a constant need in my project to have a Timer feature

Step 1: Pre-requisities

Pre-requisities

1) A working Node-red program on Windows ( Or linux, Mac....). There are many instructions on the web to setup Node-red on Windows.

2) Basic knowledge of If , else logical statments

3) And a Lot of curiosity to explore things.................

Step 2: A Bit About Node - Red ( Mind You Not Too Much in Detail.....)

As their official website states

"Node-RED is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.
It provides a browser-based editor that makes it easy to wire together flows using the wide range of nodes in the palette that can be deployed to its runtime in a single-click."

url : https://nodered.org/

U need not be a programming guy to do this but if you have some kowledge in writing javascripts , it would certainly expand your possibilities.

It's a powerful GUI having drag and drop functionaility for automating lot of this .

For eg: Using this Timer Tutorial you can design a flow wherein based on the Timer start an event " Water the garden" , " send an email" etc....

Step 3: Start Node - Red

After installing Node -red on your machine . go to the comand promt. Type in node-red to start the program.

Step 4: Node Red Control Box

The control Box would display tabs known as flows , initally it would be empty as it is a fresh install, go to the rightmost corner and from the drop down menu select "Manage Pallette" . This option is used to intstall different packages.

Click on Manage Pallette , it will open a window with two tabs

-- Nodes -This lists all the nodes ( packages) you have installed

-- Install - To install new nodes.

Go to the Install and install the below nodes:

-- node-red-dashboard : This will intsall the nodes which are used for creating dashboards ( buttons , graphs , switches etc..)

-- node-red-contrib-persist : This is a very recent node, this node can be used to store any Button state , Variable values incase the node-red crashes or closed abruptly.

-- node-red-contrib-simpletime: This is to convert the current time into whatever format required

Step 5: A Bit About the Node Red Elements

The Top portion comprises of the Different flows , you can create as many flows required, The left corner contains all the nodes . Some are default , some can be imported using the Manage pallete option and if you are experinces enough you can create a node .

A node is basically a element with predesignated features .

The right side of the work area comprises of The debug window , dashboard config etc...

In a flow you can use multiple nodes , and using the nodes from different flows you can design a dashboard.

The Setting Timer is one such Dashboard comprising of nodes from Flow " Setting Timer Flow" and "Day Set"

The entire flow can be exported to a clipboard or a file and this can be reused by importing the same.

enclosed the two Flows as a txt file.

for importing the flows:

save these ext files on your desktop

Go to the Right dropdown menu > Import > Clipboard

open the notepad and paste the contents here

repeat the action for the other flow .

So now you will have two Flows imported , click on Deploy to save the project.

Step 6: Dashboard View

Click on the Righmost corner of the debug window , you will find a bar grapg icon . This will open a new window with the dashboard UI,

Play with the timers , set different options .

This project can be further extrapolated to include months as part of the selection criteria.

Enjoy and pls provide feedback.

Productive critisicm would be gladly accpeted as i am no programmer and there would defintely be a smarter / shorter / simpler way of doing this.

Introduction: Day Timer Using Node Red With Persistant Memory