I (and I think others) have had issues like loss of connectivity in the past. I have not used the Chromecast integration for a while now myself. You may want to chat with the HE dev's, I think @gopher.ny may be the one... Apologies if I'm wrong...
@a.mcdear Can you confirm you your hub has internet connectivity (turn off your wifi on your phone and go to my.hubitat.com and see if it's there)
If so can you set a reservation for all your google stuff and your hub in your router's DHCP settings? Also what version of the platform are you on?
Yes, Hubitat does have internet access. All devices on my iot network have static addresses (via reservations from DHCP server), including Hubitat and all google/nest devices.
I am on the latest platform (2.3.4-130) on a C5 Hubitat.
So, this is odd. I decided to make a "group" within Google Home app on my phone. The group essentially just bundles the two Nest Mini speakers into a single device. I went to Chromecast Integration, added the new "group" to Hubitat as a device. Now, the doorbell properly chimes when I use the "group" as the playback device. Good. However, I still cannot communicate with the two Nest Mini's independently...
Have you tried clicking initialize on the the Chromecast devices? From memory there is a command for that on the Device page....
Yes. OK, so I hit initialize on the device page for a particular Nest speaker, and then it does seem to "wake up", allow me to change volume or mute/unmute, but it still will not play the chime on the individual device. When I play the chime to the "group", both speakers play the chime as you'd expect.
I'm kinda starting to wonder if this is just a bug with the new "Google Home PREVIEW" version I've just started using on my phone. I know they have made some behind the scenes changes because I have heard that people's "Google Home Routines" don't work after moving to the new Preview version of Google Home on their phones. I don't actually use Google's Routine functionality so I didn't think there would be any issues for me, but maybe this is the issue?
I suppose as long as the "speaker group" keeps working, then I suppose I'll just use that as the doorbell is literally the only reason I have Chromecast Integration installed at all. So maybe this workaround will just be the way forward here.. But, I have a feeling that by tomorrow this will probably not work again. I will report back if it stops working again.
Thanks!
Have you thought about using the google community integration in Hubitat Package Manager? It is much more full featured and may help you out in this strange situation.
No, I haven't. I will have to look into this. I've seen Hubitat Package Manager mentioned a few times but am unfamiliar with it and I didn't see it in the built-in Apps list. I'll search here for that now. Thanks!
It's a community app. You can find the link to it in this thread..
Thanks, I've installed it and found that some drivers were out of date. Before I install the Google Home Community app, I just want to verify that this will do what I'm trying. It appears that this is a replacement for the built-in "Google Home" app which provides Hubitat devices to the Google Home ecosystem. Can you confirm whether or not this also serves to replace the "Chromecast Integration" app, which provides Hubitat access to the devices with Chromecast capabilities to Hubitat.
I use the chromecast beta and it occasionally happens on mine as well. I have a rule that clears and reinitializes all my speakers using a virtual switch as a trigger. This seems to keep it working for a bit after I find that they have lost connection:
My Refresh Rule
It also refreshes all of my Samsung speakers. So, I lined them out and I put a red box around the section for the Chromecast ones. The underlined will also be needed. I highlighted the commands, then you select all of your speakers to replace mine that are not highlighted.
Also, if you did not, you should enable the polling in the chromecast app. I believe the default is 15 seconds. It did not eliminate the issue. But, it did make it so that I do not have to clear them nearly as often.
I've been using this for years and can't remember the last time my Google assistants quit making announcements. The built in polling option did not work as well as this app does.
I have had a lot of issues trying to use groups though and no longer have any included within HE
Same
I just tried using a group today for the first time to see if it worked better and for whatever reason it works fine for me so far....
I hadn't turned polling on within the Chromecast app until just now, so we'll see how that goes. If I keep having problems, I'll try that Chromecast Helper app next.
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I've been on the platform since April of 2020 (I came over from Smartthings) and the Google devices have always quit announcing for me unless they were "nudged". You could also just try issuing an "initialize" command for each device using Rule Machine on a continuous basis (i.e. every 4 minutes) or whatever works for you.
You need at least Initialize and Refresh. I added a speak command for confirmation that the initialization worked. But, I only do it on a virtual switch. I can see where that would not be ideal if you were doing it every X hours or minutes. Mine do not drop off that frequently anymore. So the virtual switch option works for me.
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Yeah it stopped working again today. With polling on, no difference. The group dropped out just like the individual devices did.
I decided to say heck with an app or a continuously running rule in the background to refresh on a regular basis - that seems like it takes up way more resources than necessary when this is literally only for a doorbell chime... SO, what I did was just add an "initialize" command and a "refresh" command just before the command to play the chime in my original doorbell rule. This literally solves the problem (so far...) and adds maybe an additional second of latency before the chime sounds - but it works perfectly so far and doesn't require anything continuously running.
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