Node Red - Help Understanding "Call Service" Node

Third party integrations Node-RED
1

Hey guys - I’ve been searching for a while, but I cant find a proper answer… so hoping someone can help. I have written a few flows, and I am consistently runnning into an issue when I want to chain “Call Service” nodes where it tries to merge the payloads of two requests, which sometimes is interesting, but more often for my use has been painful. For example, I want to set the volume on a speaker, and then select the source, so I use two call service nodes, thinking that each one should be an individual call, but what I end up with is a request HASS can’t use since it is no longer a valid request. Here is an example flow

51%20AM
51%20AM1058×222 21.8 KB

and the payload it creates

domain: “media_player”
service: “volume_set”
data: object
entity_id: “media_player.bedroom”
source: “Virgin Radio 96 FM 95.9 (Hot AC)”
volume_level: “0.30”

I’ve worked around this by using function nodes to either clear the payload, but is there a way to actually make this flow work without a function node?

Thanks

2

I initially used function nodes as well as they provide most flexibility. In meanwhile I use the change-node, here you can delete and set the msg.payload to whatever your Service-Node requires, you even can use flow.variables or json templates (depending on the service you are using).

To give you a more specific advise you should share your real flow (export to clipboard and add it here using </>)

3

Yea, this is basically what I have been doing… So is it really by design that the NR palette combines SOME nodes, but not others… Its very odd and annoying. I can 100% deal with it, but just seems like very opposite behaviour of what you would expect.