My usecase
I use it as part of my custom solution for some kind of "light show recording system" which I built myself. This works in a way that when I play a song on my phone, the phone sends a MQTT message with information about the song (the title, album, artist and more) to NR. If there is a lightshow configured for that song, the corresponding flow gets started. Such a flow looks like a sequence of delay-,change-,delay-,change-node and so forth, which contains the commands that my lights should get, and also the delays between them.
For creating these flows, I have an M5STACK Core2 device (which is essentially an ESP32 with a battery a touchscreen, 3 (touch-)buttons and even more) where I have some buttons on the touchscreen that trigger events in NR.
When I create a lightshow, I press these buttons in a way that my lights do what I want (brightness, color change, or even a strobe or a "round-blinking effect"). Then, these events are recorded by this flow:
[
{
"id": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"type": "tab",
"label": "MQTT Recorder",
"disabled": false,
"info": "",
"env": []
},
{
"id": "d2b9a29ebdf2f3bc",
"type": "mqtt in",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"topic": "/m5Core2/states/touch",
"qos": "0",
"datatype": "auto-detect",
"broker": "bc93d299d4d38301",
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"rap": true,
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{
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"type": "function",
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"name": "function 60",
"func": "msg.payload = {\"payload\":msg.payload,\"topic\":msg.topic,\"timestamp\":new Date().getTime(),\"lastDelay\":msg.tsdiff};\nreturn msg;",
"outputs": 1,
"noerr": 0,
"initialize": "",
"finalize": "",
"libs": [],
"x": 610,
"y": 40,
"wires": [
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{
"id": "75ba668ace844414",
"type": "switch",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"property": "recordBPs",
"propertyType": "global",
"rules": [
{
"t": "true"
}
],
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"wires": [
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{
"id": "4a4c18a859fbc7db",
"type": "file",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"filename": "/home/pi/.sys/recordLog",
"filenameType": "str",
"appendNewline": true,
"createDir": false,
"overwriteFile": "false",
"encoding": "none",
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"wires": [
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},
{
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"props": [
{
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],
"repeat": "1",
"crontab": "",
"once": true,
"onceDelay": 0.1,
"topic": "",
"payload": "recordBPs",
"payloadType": "global",
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},
{
"id": "6b48905ab72ece93",
"type": "switch",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"property": "payload",
"propertyType": "msg",
"rules": [
{
"t": "neq",
"v": "",
"vt": "prev"
}
],
"checkall": "true",
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"wires": [
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{
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"type": "switch",
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"name": "",
"property": "recordBPs",
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"wires": [
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{
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"name": "",
"filename": "/home/pi/.sys/recordLog",
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"overwriteFile": "delete",
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},
{
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"type": "change",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"rules": [
{
"t": "set",
"p": "payload",
"pt": "msg",
"to": "",
"tot": "str"
},
{
"t": "delete",
"p": "#:(file)::previous_timestamps",
"pt": "flow"
}
],
"action": "",
"property": "",
"from": "",
"to": "",
"reg": false,
"x": 570,
"y": 250,
"wires": [
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},
{
"id": "4f765a38e81ce414",
"type": "ui_switch",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"label": "MQTT Steuerungsbefehle aufzeichen",
"tooltip": "",
"group": "17d51addf9f44c6c",
"order": 4,
"width": 0,
"height": 0,
"passthru": true,
"decouple": "false",
"topic": "topic",
"topicType": "msg",
"style": "",
"onvalue": "true",
"onvalueType": "bool",
"onicon": "",
"oncolor": "",
"offvalue": "false",
"offvalueType": "bool",
"officon": "",
"offcolor": "",
"animate": false,
"className": "",
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"y": 310,
"wires": [
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},
{
"id": "d3b7991120e64152",
"type": "change",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"rules": [
{
"t": "set",
"p": "recordBPs",
"pt": "global",
"to": "payload",
"tot": "msg",
"dc": true
},
{
"t": "set",
"p": "isLSrunning",
"pt": "global",
"to": "payload",
"tot": "msg",
"dc": true
}
],
"action": "",
"property": "",
"from": "",
"to": "",
"reg": false,
"x": 450,
"y": 310,
"wires": [
[]
]
},
{
"id": "fa1be33f27cb769a",
"type": "mqtt in",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"topic": "/lights/Aaron/cmd",
"qos": "0",
"datatype": "auto-detect",
"broker": "bc93d299d4d38301",
"nl": false,
"rap": true,
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"y": 80,
"wires": [
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]
},
{
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"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
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"datatype": "auto-detect",
"broker": "bc93d299d4d38301",
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"rap": true,
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"wires": [
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},
{
"id": "eccc5c89920d4490",
"type": "function",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "function 68",
"func": "msg.payload = {\"event\":\"START\",\"timestamp\":new Date().getTime(),\"auto\":global.get(\"auto\",\"file\"),\"motion\":global.get(\"motion\",\"file\")}\nreturn msg;",
"outputs": 1,
"noerr": 0,
"initialize": "",
"finalize": "",
"libs": [],
"x": 1035,
"y": 250,
"wires": [
[
"4a4c18a859fbc7db"
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]
},
{
"id": "a25fedc1256f763e",
"type": "mqtt in",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"topic": "/sys/music/phone/title",
"qos": "0",
"datatype": "auto-detect",
"broker": "bc93d299d4d38301",
"nl": false,
"rap": true,
"rh": 0,
"inputs": 0,
"x": 120,
"y": 165,
"wires": [
[
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]
]
},
{
"id": "adfb6fc471e8d51d",
"type": "change",
"z": "5295a3249041ba5a",
"name": "",
"rules": [
{
"t": "set",
"p": "timestamp",
"pt": "msg",
"to": "",
"tot": "date"
},
{
"t": "set",
"p": "previous_timestamp",
"pt": "msg",
"to": "#:(file)::previous_timestamps[0]",
"tot": "flow"
},
{
"t": "set",
"p": "tsdiff",
"pt": "msg",
"to": "$$.timestamp- $$.previous_timestamp",
"tot": "jsonata"
},
{
"t": "set",
"p": "#:(file)::previous_timestamps[0]",
"pt": "flow",
"to": "timestamp",
"tot": "msg"
}
],
"action": "",
"property": "",
"from": "",
"to": "",
"reg": false,
"x": 440,
"y": 40,
"wires": [
[
"7f5d414d485637d9"
]
]
},
{
"id": "bc93d299d4d38301",
"type": "mqtt-broker",
"name": "",
"broker": "localhost",
"port": "1883",
"clientid": "NodeRed",
"autoConnect": true,
"usetls": false,
"protocolVersion": "4",
"keepalive": "59",
"cleansession": true,
"birthTopic": "/status/rpi4",
"birthQos": "0",
"birthRetain": "false",
"birthPayload": "CONNECTED",
"birthMsg": {},
"closeTopic": "/status/rpi4",
"closeQos": "0",
"closeRetain": "false",
"closePayload": "DISCONNECTED",
"closeMsg": {},
"willTopic": "/status/rpi4",
"willQos": "0",
"willRetain": "false",
"willPayload": "C_ERROR",
"willMsg": {},
"userProps": "",
"sessionExpiry": ""
},
{
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"type": "ui_group",
"name": "Default",
"tab": "e186d7d116ed422a",
"order": 1,
"disp": false,
"width": "6",
"collapse": false,
"className": ""
},
{
"id": "e186d7d116ed422a",
"type": "ui_tab",
"name": "LightRecorder",
"icon": "dashboard",
"order": 7,
"disabled": false,
"hidden": false
}
]
```, which prints them to a file where the MQTT topic, the value, and the timestamp with the amount of time since the last command. I then proccess the delays and the other data to a flow that looks like I described above, link them to the song (update a big switch node which starts the flow for every song), and then these commands get run every time I play that song. I integrated your flow into the "recorder" part of the system so I won't have to subtract the timestamps after recording it.
