I am going in my own idiosyncratic direction regarding my smart home with the aid of various AI systems. Specifically, I am building a hub centered around Home Assistant and Node Red, with spokes for every hub/controller (Hubitat, Zigbee2MQTT, Yolink, Home Assistant, Apple Home, Etc) and spokes for each UI interaction option (Hubitat Dashboards, Node Red Dashboards, Zigbee2MQTT UI, Alexa, Google Home, Apple Home, Home Assistant).
One of the challenges, I have encountered is that there are certain types of devices that I want to expose in a Hubitat Dashboard via Node Red to Hubitat (using Maker API) that the current set of Virtual Drivers, do not support entirely.
My research indicates that Virtual Devices are the solution I am looking for. The native virtual device drivers are exactly what I need when they cover all of the device's capabilities, but don't support all cases.
Are there others that like to have a broader range of virtual devices? I see in Hubitat Package Manager that sab0276 has created a "Universal Virtual Device Switch" which covers even more variables that the Virtual Omni Switch, but I am imagining creating more specific virtual devices that only have the relevant capabilities.
I am not expecting to create them very rapidly, but if I do is there interest in having an easy to access collection? If so are there any suggestions on how to make that happen beyond my likely path of Github? I used the word idiosyncratic to begin this long post and plan to create them on an as needed basis for devices as I get them integrated.
What I am not clear on is what you need the virtual switches to do, that the current ones are not doing for you. I code all my automations into custom apps and virtual drivers, to make them do what I need them to. What specifically do you need added to any current built-in virtual drivers?
I have found that my reliance on HE stock drivers which are not public causes a lot of problems since I can't look deeper - I used the UVDH (Universal Virtual Device Switch) and modded it to my needs.
I would love to see A virtual motion sensor, that allows the ability to force the active/inactive state, and a few others if I'm understanding what your suggesting... I will watch closely!
I tend to use the virtual devices as a way to put a devices data on to a hubitat dashboard. So if I have a device like an inovelli presence switch which is like a dimmer, but also has display LEDs and has mmwave presence detection, the existing virtual devices would require me to fan all of those capabilities out to multiple devices. I recognize, that with the right hubitat, these innovelli switches could be paired directly to the hubitat, but that isn't a great fit for my circumstance, but I still want to see the device in my Hubitat dashboard.
