Alexa skill support for thermostats?

Great! Let me know how this applet works for you.

Actually, I couldn't get it to work. I tried modifying the code a bit but kept running into syntax and runtime errors.

RM doesn't seem capable of this either, but I'll keep playing with it.

New here, wanted to say thank you! Worked great. For the newbies (and not sure if this is how it's intended to work), I had to create a virtual dimmer (called Thermostat), then used the app with the thermostat pointed to my thermostat and the dimmer pointed to the virtual dimmer called Thermostat, shared the virtual dimmer with the Alexa skill, and it works like a charm.

You can also let Alexa set cool/heat mode and turn the thermostat off by creating virtual switched (called AC and Heat), and creating rules, for example trigger event AC virtual switch turns on, action to run Thermostat to mode cool.

I'd like to do something like this to support setting my water heater temp as well, but the problem there is the values I want are all over 100 where a virtual dimmer maxes out.
Anybody know of another device type that uses a suitable scale?

You can modify a code that converts the level value (0-100) to whatever scale you need using a linear equation.

Which water heater do you have, a Rheem? Hybrid or otherwise?

Do you want a couple temperatures, or fine control? With just a couple temps, you probably could use a virtual switch. One switch for High and one for Low setting. You could even name them water heater 130 degrees or whatever if you wanted to.

From there it would be a matter of setting a rule that if virtual switch XYZ "changes", then set water heater to 130 degrees or whatever.

You probably could do as many virtual switches as you could remember the name for.

Yeah it's a rheem tankless. I was hoping to be able to call the temp out by number, like, "alexa set the hot water to 120".

I don't think the linear equation method would work in that case because alexa won't accept anything over 100 as an input value so I'd have to remember what the sub-100 numbers correspond to.

The lame thing is there's an rheem skill for alexa that does everything I want, but I can't get it to work for more than a few hours at a time without having to disable then re-enable it. After a couple of hours it just says, "sorry something is wrong. Try disabling and re-enabling the skill".

It's been broken like this for almost 2 years so it seems unlikely that rheem is going to fix it. Software is garbage.

If it won't take numbers higher than 100, just subtract the 100. Instead of 120, you would just say set to 20. :smiley:

I don't think that naming a virtual switch method will limit you by number though. The switch itself would be named water heater 120. The command would be slightly different, rather than "set to 120", you would say "turn on water heater 120".

Even if you had to do 5 virtual switches( 115 through 135 with 5 degree increments for example), it shouldn't be that bad. Clone the rules, and just change the setpoint.

Forgot to add, yea that has been broken forever. I thought it was just me or something I was doing wrong, but apparently not. I can get the app to pair and it looks like it is connected, but the voice control gives the same error you see. I even deleted and re-added the skill with no change.

I've actually been thinking about how I can automate disabling/enabling the f*cking skill every hour.

After reading up on other people having a similar experience to what I was having with the econet skill with their sonos skill, I decided to try one of their solutions, which was to disable the skill, delete all devices in alexa, rediscover all devices, then re-add the skill.

We'll see if that works, but in the meantime I lost EVERY SINGLE group and routine I had in alexa. This is something like 50+ groups and routines. The routines are actually still there but all of the actions are gone so they all have to be redone. That's only going to take hours poking at my god damn phone, since you can't even program routines from the web interface.

What sort of idiot designs a platform that encourages users to program it and then provides no facility for backing up or versioning that users's work? F*CK YOU AMAZON.

Ummm... Pretty much every cloud platform? Don't think you can backup Google routines/programming either... And I could name probably 5 others, too.

But don't get me wrong, I agree that is stupid.

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hello eric, can you please help. I'm also new to everything hubitat. and confused. what did you mean exactly... "then used the app with the thermostat pointed to my thermostat and the dimmer pointed to the virtual dimmer called Thermostat, shared the virtual dimmer with the Alexa skill" i am lost i have made the virtual dimmer but lost after that.
Any help would be appreciated.
thanks

So first, you have to add the user app that elfege pasted the code for above.

Then open the user app, under "select a thermostat" you will select your actual thermostat and under "select a dimmer" choose your virtual dimmer.

Then, in Alexa, when you discover the virtual dimmer (should be called thermostat), Alexa will allow you to say "set thermostat to X" where X is the desired temperature, and Hubitat will receive the virtual dimmer setting and via the user app will cause the real thermostat setting to be updated to the same as the virtual dimmer setting.

You can also create virtual switches called "Heat" and "AC" to allow for telling Alexa to "turn heat on", "turn heat off", "turn AC on", and "turn AC off". To do this, use the Rule Machine to create a new rules named Heat ON, Heat OFF, AC ON, and AC OFF. The trigger events for each rule will be the switches named Heat and AC, turned off or on depending on which switch you're creating. And then the capability for each trigger event is Thermostat mode, set to "heat", "cool", "off", etc. Then simply have Alexa discover the virtual switches and you'll be able to tell her to turn heat or AC off or on.

What about a home with multiple thermostats?

Same deal. Create more virtual switches with unique names - there's no limitation on the number of virtual devices you make, or rules to use them to control physical devices.

It is really easy to get around the lack of an Alexa skill for thermostats with momentary switches and virtual dimmers. I posted a sample rule in the other Alexa thermostat skill thread.

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Hello everybody,

I no longer use the applet posted above so I'm not monitoring any potential unexpected issue. BUT I do have written a more complete app that will adjust your thermostat using the same principle, but with many more options and features because I was not happy with RM for what regards thermostats management: not that it can't already do what my app does, but every little modification takes so many clicks and page refresh that I was losing my patience over it - when one can code, it's easier and faster to just do so! :slight_smile:

Here is the app: Thermostat Manager

If you want, you can also try the A.I. based app that will work in pair with the Thermostat Manager . It won't change your thermostat settings but will adjust your virtual dimmer based on your manual inputs: it learns what temperature you prefer to have for a specific range of outside temperature and humidity and when these circumstances happen again on another date, it'll remember what you liked. It's a pretty heavy db but it works well on my platform. Frequent updates.

A.I. Thermostat Set Point Manager

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Thanks so much for posting this. This is absolutely brilliant. Makes alexa work perfectly with my go control thermostat. Simply awesome!

Thank you for using this app. Please, make sure to update with the latest version I just posted on my repository. This is an important update. Make sure you go back to settings and verify all settings are to your liking after pasting the new code on your platform. Let me know if there's any issue. Thank you.