Remembering the day of your rubbish bin collection is not that difficult. Especially if this is just the very same day every week. But what if this is happening fortnightly like in my case? Would you still keep track? Nah, but there are easy reminders to be set in the Google calendar for example. But how does the calendar know, if I have pulled the trash can or cart out to the street already or not? Let’s see how this can be configured in Loxone.

Now, I need to admit that this is probably very specific scenario which obviously won’t cover everyone else’s needs, but at least it could give few hints on how to expand the solution for your particular situation.

What this does?

This solution will allow you to have reminder set in Loxone on a regular basis (e.g. every Wednesday, or every second Thursday, …), trigger what you want to, and monitor if the the trash can has been put out prior to the collection day.

What this does not?

This does not parse any calendar info from any external Public Utilities website, as such info isn’t publicly available in this form in my case. (Look here for such solution example). My example also does not currently support multiple different rubbish collection types and dates. It is made simple, but you can work out to expand this to suffice your needs.

Rubbish collection date in Loxone config

As far as I know there is no calendar that can be used for any Loxone events. Yes, there is the possibility to set the Timer-Scheduler, but how would you set there an event that happens every second Tuesday for example? Flipflop block throwing every second event away maybe. Or the way I have done this, read below:

Waste collection happens every second Wednesday. Now, I am using the function “Days Since 2009” returning every day the number of days that have passed since 1/1/2009.

Maybe it is a bit hardcore, but it works. See how.

How does it work?

Imagine that your collection day is Wed 29th, that equals 4654 days in the variable “Days since 2009”. So, every time this number gets increased by 14 it will give you the exact every second Wed you need. If the collection is on Wednesday morning, you’ll probably need to set the reminder for one day earlier, so you will need to deduct one day to remind you on Tuesday. And here is how to calculate the whole thing.

Get the current date value from the “Days Since 2009” function, deduct 4653 (Tue Sep 28, 2021 as a known date anchor) and the remaining difference will need to be dividable by 14. If the remainder after this math operation is zero Modulo(14) == 0, we are exactly at the next valid iteration. We do this using simple compare block at the modulo function result, looking if it equals zero. Then we can take this result as TRUE and an impulse at given time (e.g. 7 PM) to trigger what ever notification you want notifying you that “your trash can has to be put out for collection”.

Example how the calculation of days works and what the function Modulo does

So that was the mathematical part. Now, how to know if the trash can has been already placed out by somebody to avoid unnecessary notifications? This is something you need to customize yourself based on your local home environment and setup. In my case, I have a side gate that I use to go around the house, and where also the the rubbish cart is located. I do not have any specific sensor for the trash can position, or any fancy gadget there around. But I do have a magnetic sensor for that gate to indicate whether it is open or closed.

I simply assume, that on the day before the rubbish collection if the gate was not open at least once throughout the day, most probably the trash can was not put out for collection. And that is a trigger for my notification. It is not 100% accurate. Someone could just go through without doing anything there. But that’s a rare in my case, so I am finding this identification very helpful.

Loxone config example
Trash collection notification in Loxone

The Loxone config example illustrates how this can be implemented. Using the status block you can show in the Loxone app when the collection will happen. This can be done using the AI input value of the status block as follows:

AI1 value: Status text
0Will be collected tomorrow
1Will be collected today
2Was collected yesterday
3Was collected day before yesterday
13Will be collected in two days

I am also sending SMS to our mobile phones and displaying notification on the TV in living room.

Obviously you could modify this based on your needs, and improve with specific sensors based on your scenarios. I hope you’ll find this tutorial useful and as usual, let me know if you have designed something similar or better. Thank you.

4 Comments

  • Great work, been looking for something like this for 2 x bin setup for a while now.
    Can you show a full status block setup and what do you have on AI2 on the status block?
    Do you think a timer from when the push notification happens eg 8.00pm could start so then you have say a 2 hour time frame to put out the bin and it would clear the notification or alert?

  • Jak posíláš upozornění na televizi? Jako že máš televizi s androidem, nainstalované Loxone a skrze to? Nebo jak tam dostaneš a zobrazíš tu informaci? Děkuji

    • Set-top box umí mimo jiné zobrazit textovou zprávu jak na svém displeji tak na TV. Nemám televizi s Androidem.

      My set-top box is capable of displaying text messages on its display and also the TV.
      I do not have TV with Android.

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