Posts made by mosthated

Edit

Interestingly, when I went to go grab the LR to record the video, I left the cord I was using for power in the other room (the same cord I have been using since I first for it), and grabbed a different cord for power, I have done probably 150+ presses and have only seen the delay 2 times so far.

I had just recently moved it into another room, so I brought it back to my desk and plugged it in. I don't recall the issue being time-related (in that it's fine at first, but then later it starts acting up), so I will keep an eye on it throughout the rest of the day, testing now and then and report back tomorrow.

@Emil

I appreciate the reply. Yes, the delay is indeed reflected in the light flashing on the device itself.

I have the LR on my desk in front of me sitting on a little 5 port switch, so I am able to clearly see the light and the delay in the light flash coincides with the other findings I mentioned above.

I had opened and connected one of my Twist devices as soon as it arrived after the Kickstarter and the delay existed then (on whatever the LR firmware was at that time).

My second one, I only recently opened and connected the day you replied to my message in another thread about the SDK/feature update being available for Android. Both of these devices experience the same delay to the hub as of now (just tested again a few seconds ago with the 'newer'/just recently opened device) on firmware 4.4.2.

As for usage, I have a virtual light device setup on each, and rotation and press values are sent via mqtt, and there is a subscription setup to listen for current value to update the led. Prior to that (1 or two years ago, I can't say for sure), at some point I did setup the button press through the app to send an HTTP request. The delay happens the same no matter how I use the device, and seems to occur before any user code/actions are performed.

I was going to open the SDK console and using my phone, record a clip where the button, the hub itself (and light), as well as the console are all in frame so when I press it, the delay can be seen in realtime but wasn't sure how useful that would be.

While it's nice to finally be able to use the device after having it sit in a drawer for (years now?), there seems to be a somewhat repeatable and relatively huge latency spike in communication between the devices (happens exactly the same on both of my twist devices) that shows itself every 3-4 button presses.

The latency is between the physical device and the hub, from the time you actually press the button until there is any sort of communication received or shown via the hub SDK.

(Note, the FlicHub LR is hardwired, not using wifi. Though I don't think it would matter much for this particular issue either way.)

Ex:

1. Press button - response is milliseconds
2. Press button - response is milliseconds
3. Press button - response is milliseconds
4. Press button - response is 2.5 - 3 seconds from time of physical press until the very first log message appears.
5. Press button - response is milliseconds

... repeat this any number of times, the only difference is the issue might move to spot #2,3, but always happens after a few button presses.

The "very first log message" I am referring to is the following:

buttonManager.on("buttonSingleOrDoubleClickOrHold", function (obj) {
  log("Initial Press");

  // ... Rest of the code
}

This issue feels very much like it is firmware/connection between the device and flichub related, as I first noticed this when I initially received my flictwist/hub a few years ago when it came out. I just didn't bother to mention it at that point and put the twist in a drawer.

Now that the device has the potential to actually be useful, this random yet always present lag is annoying enough that I don't even want to use the device as I have had a lot of time to fine-tune the code for my Hue Tap Dials.

While they lack any sort of 'current rotation value' indication, they are always as close to instant as one could get and reliable. After a number of years building my smarthome, I have found those two qualities to be much more important than "neat and fancy".

That said, for additional context, I have tried every combination of resetting, reconnecting, reconfiguring that are available. It does not matter how close or far I am from the hub. I tested with the hub on my desk, button in my hand. I tried with the hub in a corner of the house farthest away from any other devices as I could be to ensure there wasn't any sort of interference from other signals, etc. The result is always the same.

I am guessing that this is just how it is, and that's that?

Edit: I captured some timestamps, generating a timestamp upon pressing a button on my keyboard and pressed the button and the keyboard at the same time:

Button Physical Press: 2025-06-19 14:32:31.705
Log Message In Hub:    2025-06-19 14:32:32.394 info: Initial Press

Button Physical Press: 2025-06-19 14:32:39.541
Log Message In Hub:    2025-06-19 14:32:40.045 info: Initial Press

Button Physical Press: 2025-06-19 14:32:46.322
Log Message In Hub:    2025-06-19 14:32:50.958 info: Initial Press

The last press had a latency of 4.636 seconds.

@Emil

I am debating on if it is even worth asking if there is an expected ETA on the Android release..

How do I enable these features? I do not see anything related to virtual devices in the flic app, and it looks like the most recent update available is 3.12.3 from 02/11/2025. I don't see any options or settings, either in the play store, or in the app to enable any sort of beta access.

My hub itself is showing v4.4.0. I don't see anything 'Studio' related showing up in providers, or in any settings.

@pascal-0

It's been... what, a year now since they came out (and the multiple years it was in development)? It's pretty obvious they have no intention of delivering on their promises.

I have pretty much given up hope for this, considering they refuse to say anything, or give any updates since it's release.

I was reading about the Philips Hue Tap Dial. I thought since it was Hue, it was going to also be useless, like the twist, but upon further investigation, turns out it is a Zigbee Dial (with 4 buttons), that works with Home Assistant and Zigbee2Mqtt out of the box (as any smart home device worth anything should). I just ordered a few of them and will be here Saturday.

If it works, I will probably just toss all this flic equipment I was conned into buying.

--- Update: The Hue Tap Dial works great, so I bought 3 more. Was able to get it up and running with Zigbee2Mqtt straight away. Used NodeRed to translate the rotation +speed to dim %, and made 1 of the buttons be a simple light toggle. There are 3 other buttons that can be used, which report press, release, hold, hold release.

The rotation reports whether it was a step, slow turn, or fast turn.

Best of all, it works exactly as advertised, and I was able to use my existing hardware (doesn't require a proprietary hub, not even the hue hub. Connected straight to my Zigbee Coordinator). Sure, it doesn't have a fancy incremental light on it, but a lot of good that was doing me with the Twist...

@reluctantflux

Anyway, really curious on how people have been creative to actually utilize the twist feature, and how they did it.

Unfortunately, they haven't.

I as well as many here, are HomeAssistant users looking to do similar things, but they have not updated the SDK to support the twist, and it has been multiple months since it's release. There is still no way to use the twist functionality outside of the.. what, 2-3? integrations that they have listed in the app.

They seem to refuse to update the SDK with this functionality, even though they had years to get the software ready for the release of this device. You try and bring it up here, everything just goes silent. No one will give an update, timeline, anything. Absolutely terrible customer service and product support.

We all just have a bunch of fancy paper weights at this point.

@Emil If you would simply update the SDK to support all flic twist features and operations, we could sort things out ourselves, one way or another. All of the functionality exists in the Hub LR for other integrations (albeit, extremely few, but it is still there), so it doesn't seem like you can't, it just seems like it won't. It was said Matter is the priority. Well, Matter seems to be going nowhere, so can we please at least get the functionality we were promised and paid for in the meantime? I should not have to beg to get what I paid for.

Why will no one give any sort of update, or tell us what is going on? That is the very least you could do. It is incredibly frustrating.

There are many companies out there who have delays, timeline adjustments, whatever else.
In this situation, there are two types of companies. Good companies, and bad ones.

What to the good companies do? They offer transparency, they give updates, they try and work out solutions.
What do the bad companies do? They give useless vague information or say nothing, and give excuses.

I have yet to hear any useful updates, or solutions. Yes, Matter took/is taking longer than you expected for whatever reasons. Ok, so that means 'oh well, too bad' for everyone? I don't understand why you can't just update the SDK. Why don't I understand? Because no one has told us why or why not. If you can't do it, say so. If you can do it, say why you won't.

No one expects, or probably even really cares about Matter support right now, considering there is basically nothing to use it with yet. Eventually? Yes, as it was listed as something that would be supported in the future.

What we do care about is the functionality we were promised of the product we bought. Whoever decided and approved it was a good idea to push Matter's priority ahead of a product you literally just launched, that everyone has in hand and cannot use as promised, needs to have their position re-evaluated at the company. I bought this based on the promised functionality and open access for development, which was not delivered. Yet, of course, the money came out of my bank account.

We want what we were promised. The functionality that was listed when the product was showcased on Kickstarter. That is the priority list. You have had multiple years to prepare for this. The functionality obviously exists, you have other items in the app using it. So please, stop with the empty and vague statements, and just deliver what we paid for. This is getting more and more frustrating each day that goes by without any updates, road map, timeline, etc, as I have all this stuff sitting on my desk that is useless.

@abboberg Side note, I have been trying to see if I could find anything useful in the Hub LR, but it's pretty limited, and no where near "like a raspberry pi", as listed on the product page.

It seems like the button doesn't yet have any twist properties on it yet, at least from what was passed in the button event.

I don't do much JS, so I had to look up some ways to get the properties, and I only checked when listening to the 'buttonSingleOrDoubleClickOrHold' event, and since the flicd or lib repos has not been updated, I have yet to find what other events it might be possible to listen to.

Button: CA22
[
    "bdaddr",
    "wasQueued",
    "isSingleClick",
    "isDoubleClick",
    "isHold",
    "age",
    "constructor",
    "__proto__",
    "toString",
    "toLocaleString",
    "valueOf",
    "hasOwnProperty",
    "isPrototypeOf",
    "propertyIsEnumerable",
    "__defineGetter__",
    "__defineSetter__",
    "__lookupGetter__",
    "__lookupSetter__",
    "on",
    "emit"
]

@rick Yeah, so far it feels that everything about the twist and support for it/from the company feels like a Shortcut Labs to sell the product.

@abboberg Yeah, it's quite frustrating to now be two years waiting and $200~ invested into this ecosystem under the marketing promises that it was to be super customizable, open and 'fully programmable' to do with what you please. Only to receive items which are currently no more useful to me than the pile of other buttons I have sitting around which cost a fraction of the price, and at least work out-of-the-box as advertised.

Starting to feel rather duped by said marketing promises. No one gives any actually useful information, just vague, eventually/maybe type answers, etc. Definitely not an experience I would want to recommend to anyone else to have to deal with.

Why even bother shipping the product when it, effectively, provides none of the major selling points that were pushed toward the targeted audience?

All I have received so far is disappointment.

It's been over two weeks since the last official reply. It would definitely be nice to see some updates on the status of this. As of now, I waited two years for a pair flic paperweights.