Cron Job Question

Nneuland

Within terminal these work flawlessly.

vcgencmd display_power 0 to turn off

vcgencmd display_power 1 to turn on

However my cron job isn’t turning my monitor back on. Any suggestions? This is my cron job

0 14 * * * root /usr/bin/vcgencmd display_power 1 >/del/null 2>&1

0 23 * * * root /usr/bin/vcgencmd display_power 0 >/dev/null 2>&1

Am I missing something?

evroom

@Nneuland

Just a small remark: /del/null is a typo.
When off works, then on will work when you change to /dev/null.
Unless it is right on your system and the typo is in your thread.

sdetweil

@Nneuland probably they don’t know what DISPLAY is set to

take of the redirects >
so u can see the errors in the cron log

plainbroke

@Nneuland
My Old Cronjob was like this.
00 07 * * 1-5 /home/pi/hdmi-on.sh
45 21 * * 1-5 /home/pi/hdmi-off.sh
00 07 * * 6,0 /home/pi/hdmi-on.sh
00 22 * * 6,0 /home/pi/hdmi-off.sh

hdmi-off.sh file contains :
vcgencmd display_power 0

hdmi-on.sh file contains:
vcgencmd display_power 1

Don’t forget to
sudo chmod +x hdmi-off.sh
sudo chmod +x hdmi-on.sh
If you go this route.

Now I use MMM-AutoDimmer
my setup in config.js it works great

{
        disabled: false,
        module: "MMM-AutoDimmer",
        position: "fullscreen_above",
        header: "",
        // Don't change anything above this line
        config: {
        maxDim: 1,
        brightTime: 700,
        dimTime: 2130
              }
},

sdetweil

@plainbroke I use a webcam for motion and also hide modules instead of turn off the display

using my Sleep wake module
https://github.com/sdetweil/MMM-SleepWake

plainbroke

@sdetweil
I will give that a try next rainy day we have.
I like to try things like that module on my raining can’t do anything outside days…

evroom

@Nneuland

Just a small remark: /del/null is a typo.
When off works, then on will work when you change to /dev/null.
Unless it is right on your system and the typo is in your thread.

sdetweil

@evroom good catch!

Nneuland

@evroom

Good eye. And yes! This was the issue. Thank you

plainbroke

@sdetweil
Is there a way to run this as a cron job to black out the screen then in the morning un black the screen?
I don’t understand the camera angle, I have Motion Eye running on a PI zero and raspberry 5 mp camera and it works showing up in my mirror using Motion-Eye. I just do not understand at all the code to make it happen…

sdetweil

@plainbroke I use the GitHub motion project to handle the camera and motion detection.
https://github.com/Motion-Project/motion
( I didn’t want to learn how to manage the camera too)

it signals motion start and end.
the library provides tons of config options and supports just about every camera.

I provide the interface script that is called on motion start/end and signals my sleep/wake module to turn off screen or hide modules.

you could use the script I provide in the cron job to signal wake up or go to sleep on a timed schedule

plainbroke

@sdetweil
What would the script code look like to do this manually instead of using the motion thing. I tried installing it but could not get it to work for me… the autoreconfig would not run at all… make just failed and one other step could not find certain files. There is no indication it actually installed. so I ran remove and it did. not sure where the motion program was installed in the first place I tried to install from inside MagicMirror/modules so I would be easier for me to find with no luck and when I tried to use find to find it nothing was found. Not my cup of tea for sure.

Thought if there is a way to run your script manually I would then just incorperate that into a cron job and be done with it.
The module I am running autodimmer still glows at night and you can see the modules faintly in the background…

sdetweil

@plainbroke autoreconfig?

u don’t have to build motion, they have binaries (on every platform I’ve tried so far)

my script (launched by something outside mm)
creates an empty file in a known folder for each motion event

detected
ended

my module node_helper watches for those files to be created, and then sends notification to my module side to signal sleep or wake depending on the config.

the default folder is ‘motion’ inside the MMM-SleepWake folder

the script locates the running mm instance, and uses it’s path to locate the module folder and this it’s motion folder

the script assumes the path includes the username mm is running under and that username is used to set file permissions, so the module can remove them after processing the detection

Nneuland

@plainbroke

If I understand you correctly the dimmer is dimming the modules, but the monitor is still giving off light. A cron job set to turn on/off the monitor at specific times is what you’re looking for.

sdetweil

@Nneuland however, in many cases u cannot turn off the actual monitor… only HDMI port… which then puts up a NO INPUT message, til it powers off (energy star compliant)

I cannot turn off any of mine, so I hide modules instead, but get a glow… (my nightlight)

plainbroke

This post is deleted!

sdetweil

@plainbroke for me

sudo apt install motion

was all I needed

plainbroke

This post is deleted!

plainbroke

@Nneuland
Exactly and I have dimmer max set to 1 which should in my understanding blank the screen. It used to but since my reinstall of MagicMirror and all modules it does not seem to work correctly. I am in the process of removing it and reinstalling the dimmer module, to see if that is my problem… It also starts dimming 2 hours early but changing the dim timer has no effect. The reason for removal and reinstall today…

sdetweil

@plainbroke yes logitech USB webcam.

just works

I fiddled w delay, and some light flash settings but thing else…

plainbroke

@sdetweil
Ok that is what I was wondering. I am playing with it now. I WILL figure it out. I like the idea of it being blank we have enough ambient light from out side. (night time porch lights, I live out in the sticks.) for security lighting…