Setting the state of an Octoblu device from a flow

Building on what I began:

Part 1: Use configuration events in Octoblu
Part 2: Creating custom devices in Octoblu

In this post I am going to set and unset properties and their values on an Octoblu Thing, from a flow.

I am going to use the custom Thing that I created in my previous post, but you can use any Thing that has the option "Use Configuration Events".

Part 3 - Setting properties dynamically from a flow

In the previous post I created a custom Thing. And named it: MyDevice

Now I create a new flow, and I add that Thing to the Flow.

I select the Node (a reference to that thing in this flow) and turn on Use Configuration Events.  Notice the little gear.  This means that the behavior of this node in this flow is now different.

The next advanced thing that I am going to do is to add Trigger and JSON template nodes to define the message that is being sent and I am going to turn on Use Incoming Message on my custom node.

Let me back up here and explain a little..
Use Incoming Message takes whatever message is sent to the node.  If you don't turn this on, your device must have fields that you can set and then you can reference the values of keys using mustache notation or hard code values.

And then I am going to attach a debug node after my Thing.

And this makes a complete message circuit from start to end.

Be careful to pay attention to what you are doing - DO NOT create loops; they are very, very bad.  You will get your account suspended.

Now, to craft some JSON.

This is a very simple JSON body that we put in the template:
{
 "$set": {
  "rooms": "foo"
 }
}
Set the value for the key rooms to foo.

Start the flow, click the Trigger, and look for the Key 'rooms' in the message output.
In fact, explore that message output a bit.  Notice, these are all the settings / properties / state values of your device.

Now, change the JSON.  Change the key name, or change the value and see what happens.

If you want to remove the key and its values, we unset.
{
 "$unset": {
  "rooms": ""
 }
}
The $set and $unset are actually MongoDB commands.  And you can use others, such as $addToSet, $push, etc.  As long as you format your JSON properly.

Now, I have discovered that there are some key names that must be special to Octoblu and if you try to use them, nothing happens.  I am going to mention that in case you run into doing everything right, but nothing changes.
Is there a list of these special keys?  Not that I know of.  I was simply observing behavior...

Next up:  responding to state changes