Alexa

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61

I don't do this, and all of my Hubitat groups work just fine with Alexa. Stay tuned for our Alexa Wizards, coming soon.

62

Do you mean all your routines work just fine? Groups are not an issue, but virtual devices in routines are. If you put the virtual device inside the group, which works fine, and then put the group inside the routine, then it works fine too.

63

I don’t have any Alexa groups or routines. I do all of that in Hubitat.

“Alexa, set living room to 30”, “Alexa turn off kitchen”, “Alexa, set patio to 90”, etc. Those are groups of dimmers and switches in Hubitat. “Kitchen” is also activated by motion sensors, and Lutron keypads and Picos, all unified and synchronized, along with Alexa. Alexa is just another activating device, as it were.

1 Like
64

I must be missing something really obvious here…but I don’t see the “group” option in Hubitat.
Or are you creating virtual devices and then have rules triggered accordingly to the group members?

65

I could not figure out how to group devices (dimming bulbs) either.

Also tried a virtual dimmer but it controls the bulbs as a switch. On/Off works but dimming does not.

66

This is done in Motion Lighting and Mode Lighting. We also have a new app coming soon that will explicitly create groups of lights for Alexa, without the overhead of Motion Lighting and Mode Lighting, if all you want is a group of lights for Alexa to control.

3 Likes
67

So trying to set this up and this is what I have done.

  1. Removed all smarthome skills from alexa
  2. Forgot all devices from Alexa.amazon.com
  3. Installed alexa hubitat app.
  4. Selected 1 device to add
  5. Tried ‘Alexa Discover my devices’. Nothing.
  6. Tried adding from the alexa app. Nothing.rebooted my hub 3x. Nothing

I am on FW 704

Any other ideas?

68

Here another thread with lots of information

69

Ok, so, I have a potentially new wrinkle.

My partner and I are in an Amazon household, and I used her Alexa profile to do the initial discovery via the Hue Hub functionality built into Hubitat.

I wanted to go into my Alexa profile (we have different musical tastes, hence the different profiles), and then have it discover the Hubitat devices so that no matter which profile a particular Echo is in, the control mechanisms would work.

When I go into my profile for our Echos and hit ‘Discover Devices’ for the Hue, it churns, and comes back with ‘No New Devices.’ I suppose this makes some sense, since they were previously discovered.

Is there any way to get those Hubitat devices into my Alexa profile as well?

Thanks.

BTW - I’ve been loving the new hub and flexibility and speed it’s provided. Yes, it’s ‘engineering rough’ from a UI standpoint, but, really fantastic work by @bravenel & team… :smiley:

70

I have not revisited this configuration for sometime. My situation is 2 profiles (me and wife) and 2 homes. We had to configure 1 account to be home and 1 account to be 2nd home. Pain in the but. We are constantly telling alexa to change accounts to accomplish something (track an order, music, etc) and then not switched back to the correct account for that home to use with automations. If what you are trying to accomplish worked, I might consider setting up 2 more amazon accounts/profiles and having mine account per home and her account per home but both accounts at each location able to control devices.

71

@patrick - is there any update on the Alexa Skill? Once that’s in place I can shutdown SmartThings for good. Right now my echo doesn’t discover devices so I am using the other hub app and replicating all of my switches to ST just so I can use their Alexa Skill.

72

Its coming soon. I know you want more specifics but that’s all I can say.

2 Likes
73

I am not sure where everything is with alexa. I just wanted to point out this skill by the autoapps developer.

He has a very flexible setup with virtual devices and variables. Which is also very easy to setup. Could something like this be done in hubitat?

https://plus.google.com/+JoĂŁoDias/posts/1W1Wfkd6hpZ

74

I was trying to use mode manager with button control and Alexa and just saw the Alexa App doesn't see buttons. I am using Rule Machine to get past this, but can this get an update for virtual buttons?
Craig

75

An Alexa Skill is on the way and will replace the Alexa Echo app. Hopefully buttons will be supportable, but I have never seen a momentary switch (e.g. a button) in the Alexa app. I'm not certain their API supports it.

76

If the virtual button driver also has the "Switch" capability it should still be available to use in Alexa. I have a "Sleep Mode" VB that I use with Alexa to turn on/off a bunch of lights, lock my doors and set my mode to "Night". Works perfectly.

77

This is the custom Virtual Momentary driver I use.

/**
 *  Virtual Momentary 
 *
 *  Copyright 2018 Stephan Hackett
 *
 *
 * 
 */
def version() {"v1.0.20180413"}

metadata {
	definition (name: "Virtual Momentary", namespace: "stephack", author: "Stephan Hackett") {
        capability "Switch"
        capability "Momentary"
	}
	preferences {
	}
}

def push() {
    sendEvent(name: "switch", value: "on")
    sendEvent(name: "momentary", value: "pushed", isStateChange: true)
    runIn(1,toggleMom)
}

def toggleMom(){
    sendEvent(name: "switch", value: "off")
}

def on() {
    push()
}

def off() {
    push()
}

def installed() {
 	initialize()
}

def updated() {
 	initialize()
}

def initialize() {
    state.version = version()
}
2 Likes
78

Thanks, Stephan. Posting this is probably just a small thing for you but it solved a nagging problem (with a significant WAF factor) for me.

79

nice!

80

I had to do this, I tried telling alexa about 20 times over an hour to discover devices. I did this once and it found the one thing I had moved over. This should be recommended, and mentioned in the instructions IMO.