Conductor 2 is nowhere ready and I need changes now so they go in Conductor 1.

The desired next step is to support the presence-based activation rather than button activation.

Although I have plans for a Conductor 2 which would be route-based, at that point this is an orthogonal task and it can be deferred for later.

Profiles is a Conductor 2 feature, and not tied to a presence sensor.

What is the minimum “clean” approach needed for the sensor presence?

What is the minimum I need to provide?

Arduino / ESP. I have 2 options:

• ESP32 w/ OLED per original plan.
• Display is wasted.
• Can be anywhere convenient, as it would use the wifi.
• It would send an HTTP GET either to JMRI or to Conductor.
• Non-wifi Arduino such as Nano or Digikey.
• Connected to the tablet via USB cable.
• RTAC would poll status except when wifi/conductor is down (sleep mode).
• RTAC would send an HTTP GET either to JMRI or to Conductor, or use the KV server.

RTAC:

• We need a “next train” display. In fact it’s more about automation status.
• “Automation Not Working”
• “Automation Idle” (when no presence)
• “Next Train in X minutes“
• Suggested implementation is to not have any text hardcoded in RTAC. Instead RTAC would have a tab displaying text and Conductor would send the text. This makes it easier to update.
• Default to “Automation Not Working” when there is no connection.

Conductor:

• Need an automation mode
• Off: when the activation switch is down. It ignores presence.
• Idle: activation is on, waiting for presence.
• On: presence is detected, a train started running.
• Automation mode toggles between on and idle.
• Sensor brings the automation from idle to on. It does nothing if off.
• Each time, it resets a timer that would reset it from on to idle. Does nothing if off.
• There would be one mode per route.
• Script:
• Sensor PA-Toggle is the physical switch. Keep as-is.
• Enum PA-Mode : Off, Idle, On.

Enum PA-Motion = Off Idle On Export Int Motion = 0 PA-Toggle & PA-Motion == On & PA-State == Station → Train Starts !PA-Toggle → PA-Motion = Off PA-Toggle & PA-Motion == On   & Sensor-Motion == 0 → PA-Motion = Idle PA-Toggle & PA-Motion == Idle & Sensor-Motion == 1 → PA-Motion = On ; PA-PresenceTimer Start PA-Toggle & PA-Motion == On   & PA-PresenceTimer → PA-Motion = Idle

• Where does the Presence var come from in the script? It could be an int-var or a fake JMRI sensor.
• Int-var set from the KV server.
• Virtual JMRI sensor set via its JSON API.
• How to send text to RTAC?
• By using an export string var.
• By using some kind of enum?
• Language has no provision to compute a dynamic “train in X minutes” string.
• Language has no function to set a string as a conditional action.

Export String rtac-text = “Automation not Working” PA-Motion == Off → rtac-text = “Train Automation Not Working” PA-Motion == Idle → rtac-text = “Train Automation Idle” PA-Motion == On → rtac-text = “Train is Running” PA-State == Station → rtac-text = “Train Stopped.\nNext train starts in {now+10m} minutes”

One possibility is to let RTAC interpret the string format and replace it with the minute countdown.

There is no need for the script itself to take care of that.

I also think the string should have some basic formatting codes which RTAC can interpret:

• “\n” or | for a line break.
• {c:rgb} for a text color. Either RGB or names if they can be resolved.
• {b:rgb} for a background color. E.g. black/red for stopped and white/black for running.

That leaves the issue of stopping automation at 5 PM. There are multiple ways to do that. One would be to hardcode something in Conductor that sets the JMRI sensor to inactive at the expected time.

• Conductor would set ALL the route toggles to OFF at the given time. There is no need to configure the sensor names, as they are already configured in the routes.
• The way JMRI works, it will use the sensor override value till the actual physical toggle is changed. This can be used to our benefit: automation turns off at 5. If operators want it on, they can just flip the toggles off and then back on.
• The only thing to be configured is the turn-off time.

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