How to coalesce multiple requests to a device?

Hi there!

I am writing a platform to control a single phisical device with 48 individuals light bulbs (declared as distinct accessories inside the platform). I started from homebridge-samplePlatform.

Everything work as expected when I turn the lights individually by the Home app. But when I activate a scene with more than 10 lights, it hangs the Home app with “no response” statuses. The plugin sends several individual requests (one for each light) at the same time, flooding the device.

Here’s part of the log:

EventedHTTPServer [::ffff:192.168.11.19] HTTP request: /characteristics +5s
  HAPServer [CC:22:3D:E3:CE:31] HAP Request: PUT /characteristics +0ms
  Accessory [Homebridge Mac] Processing characteristic set: [{"aid":10,"iid":9,"value":false},{"aid":11,"iid":9,"value":false},{"aid":3,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":2,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":12,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":14,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":13,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":9,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":8,"iid":9,"value":false},{"aid":7,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":4,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":5,"iid":9,"value":false},{"aid":6,"iid":9,"value":1},{"aid":15,"iid":9,"value":1}] +2ms

It shows that homebridge receive just one request from HAPServer but split in several individual requests to the device (not in the log).

I guess it should coalesce all these separated requests into a single request to the device but I have no idea how to do that, I mean, which events to implement. Can anybody help me? Examples will be welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[ebaauw]

1, 2: I really don’t know - I’ve only ever used homebridge, never native HAP-NodeJS. I do think the Service and Characteristic stuff is HAP-NodeJS, though.

3: My solution consists of the following:

• On creating a light I setup callback functions, like SetOn() that are called by HAP-NodeJS when the corresponding characteristic is changed from HomeKit, https://github.com/ebaauw/homebridge-hue/blob/73ff16c2e2871cd5fceaa30af1ba3a5af6869aa9/lib/HueLight.js#L225;
• The callback function calls request() to store the new value, https://github.com/ebaauw/homebridge-hue/blob/73ff16c2e2871cd5fceaa30af1ba3a5af6869aa9/lib/HueLight.js#L883;
• request() stores/adds the new value to desiredState. When this is the first invocation of request() (since the last put()), it sets a timeout to call put(), https://github.com/ebaauw/homebridge-hue/blob/73ff16c2e2871cd5fceaa30af1ba3a5af6869aa9/lib/HueLight.js#L979;
• put() calls bridge.request() with desiredState, possibly containing multiple new values, https://github.com/ebaauw/homebridge-hue/blob/73ff16c2e2871cd5fceaa30af1ba3a5af6869aa9/lib/HueLight.js#L999;
• bridge.request() uses deferred to throttle calls to bridge._request(), https://github.com/ebaauw/homebridge-hue/blob/73ff16c2e2871cd5fceaa30af1ba3a5af6869aa9/lib/HueBridge.js#L157;
• bridge._request() uses request to send the REST API call to the Hue bridge, https://github.com/ebaauw/homebridge-hue/blob/73ff16c2e2871cd5fceaa30af1ba3a5af6869aa9/lib/HueBridge.js#L865.

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