I wanted my goodnight/goodmorning rules machine to turn on/off an Alen Air 45i air filter, but could not find an easy local method (see thread link below). Instead I hooked it up in a very round about way through both Tuya Smart Life (cloud) and Amazon Alexa (cloud). Two clouds and two cloud linkages have to be up for this to work.
- Tuya Smart Life cloud. Instead of pairing the 45i with the Alen Air application, I paired it with Tuya's Smart Life [really re-paired it]. a) downloaded Smart Life on phone and created Smart Life account (for their cloud world). b) Paired 45i with Smart Life application on phone (holding auto button on 45i for 6 seconds till wifi light blinks). Followed Smart Life instructions for adding device about 5 times before I got it correctly added (selected small appliances and air filter with bluetooth). Verified 45i could be controlled through Smart Life phone app. c) see step 4 if you care. The Tuya cloud already knew about the 45i and other Alen Air filters in the house, asking me to select which one, so I had to select Smart Life and not Alen Air. As and aside, Smart Life is able to set timers unlike the Alen Air app for the 45i.
- Created a virtual contact closure on hubitat to be used to control 45i. Added it to my rules machine routines. Made sure it was permitted on the Alexa app.
- On Alexa. a) had Alexa re-discover devices. b) made sure the virtual contacts showed up. c) In skills and games, added 'Smart Life - Smart Home' skill. It of course needed the Smart Life account/password to link the two services. d) Checked that the 45i shows up in list of devices Alexa can control (unfortunately, Alexa only offers on/off and fan speed -- Smart Life does most things). e) created routines looking at the contact closures from hubitat (Alexa routines cannot be triggered by switches) to turn 45i on and off based on contact closures (which are set by rules machines on hubitat).
- I used to just have a simple zwave outlet to turn the 45i on/off without all this, but I still had to turn the control panel light off manually. Well, it comes back on when a remote on command is issued. The only way I found around that was to put an automation on Smart Life (also called tap to run) saying that If the 45i is powered on to put the 45i in 'sleep' mode. That turns the light off.
Rules machine closes virtual contact-->Alexa integration forwards closed contact to Alexa-->Alexa routine triggers Smart life integration-->Smart Life turns on 45i-->Smart Life routing sees on and triggers 'sleep'
There was this thread about it and integrations with Tuya... but that is a bit much for what I wanted to achieve at this point: State of Tuya / Smartlife Wi-Fi Integration
Some day I may get around to Home Assistant Device Bridge -- but don't need that just for an air filter.
