Hello all. I am new to the Hubitat. I have lots of Wi-Fi and Alexa devices. I have only recently started to add Z-Wave devices. Maybe I should use Zigbee also?
The question:
I have a Zooz 4 in 1 sensor. With that sensor, I want to turn on some lights that are WiFi and controled through Smart Life or Alexa.
Is that possible. I just don't understand if Hubitat can work with Alexa this way. I can't seem to get it to work.
What is the best way to do this?
Basically, I just want to turn on my garage lights (Wi-Fi) when motion is detected by the Zooz sensor in the garage.
Thank you.
You’ll have to expose your Hubitat-paired sensors to the Amazon Alexa integration, and then use Alexa Routines to turn the light on when the sensor detects motion.
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That is what I thought I was doing. I will try again.
Thanks for now. I will get back after I try it again.
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I would also point out that particular sensor can be problematic on the C7. If it's that 700 make sure you click skip when prompted for security. If it's the 500 series chip you should remove it and re pair it using a z-wave stick paired as a secondary controller to hubitat. These units when paired with s0 can bring down a z-wave mesh.
I set up a virtual motion detector.
Then I try to create a rule.
It seems to go OK until I get to "what action to take" and I don't know where to go from there.
Is there some step by step guide to do this? I have looked at a lot of videos, but I have never seen this exact or similar thing done.
Thanks again.
While it's possible by using virtual switches IMHO it gets messy and tiresome creating all those virtual devices. Additionally the will not be controlled lol cally, instead still needing Alexa cloud services. What exactly do you have and how many. Maybe much of it can be replaced with ZigBee or Z-wave or at least Kasa which all can be controlled through Hubitat locally.
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Hello and welcome @gminer . I am certainly not an expert at this but I was in a similar situation as you as I already had several WiFi wall smart switches controlling my dumb bulbs, which were originally controlled via Alexa which I wanted to control with my HE sensors.
First of all, Alexa Routines (in your Alexa App) can only be triggered by contact sensors (or virtual contacts with auto-off), locks and motion sensors when these devices are “imported” into the Alexa App via the HE Amazon Echo Skill. Secondly, I do not have any experience with the Zooz 4 in 1, but if it can be exposed to Alexa by the HE Amazon Echo Skill app as a virtual device, then you should be good. Third, just to avoid confusion, in my description, the “Amazon Echo Skill app” refers to the app on the HE Hub, and the “Alexa App” refers Amazon’s UI (the mobile app on your phone e.g.).
I do not know of an existing step-be-step, so here is my rudimentary attempt to try to help you out:
- Load the Amazon Echo Skill app onto your Hubitat Hub.
- Go into Alexa and add and enable the Hubitat Skill into your Alexa App.
- Add your motion sensor as a device using the appropriate driver onto your Hubitat Hub.
- Open the Amazon Echo Skill app on the Hubitat Apps page and add your motion sensor device as a device in the “Select Devices” menu.
- The motion sensor should show up as a device in the Alexa App at this time (you will receive a notification from your Alexa App that it has been added to Alexa). If for some reason it does not, try to click on discover devices in your Alexa App so see if it shows up. If it is not supported as a “trigger” device, then you can do steps 6) - 9) below:
6). Create a “virtual contact with auto-off” in the HE device page and set with “auto-off”.
7). Set up a RM rule so that when your motion sensor reports “active” or “closed” (use motion sensed as a trigger for the RM rule), that the action will be to turn on the “virtual contact with auto-off” to ON.
8). If you had to create this “virtual contact with auto-off” device, then remember to also go to the Amazon Echo Skill app in HE and include it as a device (click on the box to the left of the device then remember to click on the “update” button then “done” to exit the app.
9). You should receive a notice from your Alexa App (if you have enabled notifications in the settings) that this device was “discovered” and added to Alexa.
10). Once all the devices have been successfully “enrolled” and show up in Alexa, go to your Alexa App and set up a Routine.
11). Enter a routine name, then go to “when” go to the Smart Home icon and find either a) the Motion Sensor (if it shows up as available as a trigger device), or b) the Virtual Contact Sensor with Auto-off (if the motion sensor does not work).
12). Next, go to the “Alexa will” and enter whatever action you want (in your case, turn on your WiFi Alexa enabled light for whatever amount of time you wish the light to stay on once motion is detected).
Things get a lot more complicated if you wish to have the status of this light on a dashboard in HE as the communication is one-way. That is, Alexa cannot use the wall switch to send a signal back to HE that the light has been turned off (in the event you wanted to manually turn off the switch before the motion “time out” lapses.
Anyway, again, this is just my best effort to help out as I do not have any experience with the Zooz 4 in 1’s/ All my motion sensors are hardwired into my security system which is integrated with HE via Envisalink, so that is how I get my motion detection to turn on lights so as usual, YMMV. Anyway, hope this helps to get you going.
If it is only a couple of lights you want to do this with, as others have suggested, you may just wish to go to a Zigbee bulb or in-wall switch and control it directly through HE rules. In my case, I have had very good stability and reliability with WiFi switches, and since I already had tons of them, I just kept using them since many were Tasmotized for local only control. My WiFi network has not seemed to suffer as far as I can tell. I have also replaced some of my non-local WiFi switches (GE Cync) with Kasa WiFi switches which can be locally controlled by HE (and are relatively cheap). Good luck!
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