What is the most convoluted thing you guys implemented?

[Tarun Nagpal]

So I definitely went too far here...

I wanted to integrate evapotranspiration (ET) and water tension data, similar to what Home Assistant Smart Irrigation, Rainbird or other prosumer controllers do natively. (IMO, Loxone should have this built-in)

But also want to keep the stock interface for the end-user (and this is where things went too far)

The Problem

The Loxone Irrigation block doesn't feed out the runtimes entered in the UI, which makes it impossible to modify them with Home Assistant's Smart Irrigation data

Solution - User facing facade block and Master real block

1. The "User" Block (The Facade): This is the one visible in the app. Baseline times entered here (e.g., 3600s for zone 1; etc).

2. The "Master" Block (The Real One): This is hidden and actually controls the valves using modified times.

How it Works

• The 02:00 Phantom Run: Every night, I trigger a "fake" run on the User Block. The valves stay shut, but I capture how long each zone stays active and save those baseline times into Analog Memory blocks.

• The Math: I take those captured times and hit them with a multiplier from Smart Irrigation:

  Actual Runtime=Baseline× Modifier

• The Actual Run: A separate scheduler then triggers the hidden Master Block using these new, smart-calculated values to actually water the yard.

• Keeping up Appearances: To make sure the app still shows "Watering" when the sprinklers are actually on, I run the User Block again in parallel with the real run. I just use a logic gate to make sure this second run doesn't overwrite the memory values I captured at 02:00.

And this is what the logic ends up looking like for just two zones... (Backyard is a nightmare of six zones)

Do I recommend anyone do this? No. Am I going to put it live in production? Yes.

[L P]

My roller blinds and shades setup...

I have KNX controllers and actuators for all roller blinds and shades. This was part of the design so that almost everything keeps working in the event of a  miniserver failure. I've integrated Loxone with Apple HomeKit using Homebridge, mainly for voice control of lighting and window coverings. Loxone's KNX blinds block doesn't display up or down in the interface and Apple's HomeKit doesn't work well with a blinds block that doesn't "know" whether it's up or down. So... I integrated the KNX actuator's up/down feedback with the Automatic Shading block. In the Loxone apps I use the KNX block with the ability to see the up/down status as a linked function block. In Apple's Home app I display its interpretation of the the Automatic Shading block, which works correctly if it knows the up/down status. The fiddly part was getting the KNX sensor to correctly update the Automatic Shading block, since they aren't really made for each other. It took me a while to get it to handle all the cases of partial opening, but it's been stable and working correctly for some time now. I wish Loxone's KNX blocks had feature parity with other types.