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