Child Bridges

[agunn]

I've not had a lot of interaction on github regarding this great interface to c-bus for quite some time (2016 actually - since the addition of a the network option in accessory) but have been receiving the emails from github. I just wondered what might be involved to support Child Bridges and if it would be relatively easy. I'm happy to give it a go but I suspect there are faster/smarter people on here than me!

I've hit the wall on the 149 accessory limit (and today I tried to run a config.json on a pi and it won't support anywhere near that - I haven't counted but perhaps only 99-100? accessories).

https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge/wiki/Child-Bridges

OK - Immediately after I posted I saw this https://github.com/anthonywebb/homebridge-cbus/issues/119 re same thing. Apologies. I have added the _bridge option but it didn't seem to do anything so wondered if it is ignored in the homebridge-cbus implementation of accessory? Thanks

[DarylMc]

Hi @agunn I've just commented here to try keep in the loop for this topic. At the moment I'm also try to setup a child bridge arrangement for a user with greater than 150 CBus group addresses.

[malowe1]

@agunn, @DarylMc - have you managed to get child bridges to work for cbus? Are you able to post an image / script for a working homebridge-cbus child bridge here? I'm following the links to help pages and guidance, but a working example for cbus config would help greatly. Cheers,

[JasonY00]

I can’t say that I pursued the child bridge concept too much. It didn’t seem to work. My solution was to just run up another instance of Homebridge and split the CBus accessories between the two. Not ideal, but it works well. It is, however running on Windows 10.

I also ran into a c-bus problem where I had more than 256 group address on the lighting app, so I defined and started using another lighting app on $57. So generally, I split application $56 GA’s on instance 1 of Homebridge and application $57 GA’s on instance 2. If you update the Homebridge plugins on one instance, it updates for both on Win10. They run as two separate services.

Doing the same on a pi should be just as simple. A new pi should have no trouble doing this from a cpu and RAM loading point of view.

Let me know if you want to look into this. A maximum of 149 accessories is the magic number. As a footnote , this technique is deprecated, but for c-bus, it still works!

cheers

Jason

[malowe1]

Thanks @JasonY00 - I don't have that many accessories, addresses or want to have separate HomeBridge instances. I'm guessing no-one is bothering with the recommendation to set cbus up as a child bridge(s). Will leave it until something definitive is provided. Cheers, Mike

[JasonY00]

I think if you don't need to do it, then don't complicate things. It's not always worth doing something just because you can. You can have all of your other plugins as a child bridge and just leave c-bus in the main config by itself.

If you are not hitting the 149 accessories limit in homebridge then its not worth the trouble of child bridges/extra instances. I don't know if Anthony is actively developing this plugin anymore, so just keep the configuration vanilla flavoured!

Can you close this issue if you are satisfied with the answer?

Cheers

Jason

[SulVento2]

Hello,

I not sure if this is related but I am having a similar problem. I have 90 groups in my C-Bus installation. Most are physical devices but some relate to virtual devices such as group timers or group controls. I added all the groups into the json configuration file and Homebridge except the file and runs perfectly. I can control any group, physical or virtual from the Homebridge control panel without any problems.

My problem is when I try to add the accessory to HomeKit. The synchronisation process starts but I get a "Unable to Add Accessory" "Accessory is out of compliance" error and the accessory is not added to HomeKit.

I would appreciate any thoughts

[DarylMc]

https://github.com/anthonywebb/homebridge-cbus Have a read of valid accessory types on the readme page. Then perhaps post here the config lines for a problematic device.

I'd like to add I'm not very familiar with running Homebridge with CGate 3.2 and you will be one of the first I know of.