Google Assistant/Hub <-> Chromecast (w/ Lutron)

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#1

We have Lutron Ra2 with an "All Off" button on a keypad that turns all the lights off in my whole studio. I'm trying to basically get that button to also turn off a Samsung TV with a Google Chromecast attached to it.

Using the "All Off" button to trigger a rule is easy. Lutron integration is top-notch, love it.

I have a google Hub that happens to sit right next to the TV and I often tell the Hub to turn off the TV by speaking, "Hey Google, Turn off the TV". Works great using the HDMI CEC.

A lot of searching of this forums suggest there is no way to issue the "Hey Google, Turn off the TV" directly to the Google Hub via Hubitat without installing some additional software on another server - not ready for that yet.

So I think, let's have the TV use TTS to say to the Google Hub, "Hey Google, Turn off the TV" to turn itself off! Has to work right? NOOOO! As soon as the TV says "Hey Google", the Chromecast mutes itself for the next several seconds. I even used "Hey Googel" and couldn't fool it. If I use, "Hey Doodle, Turn off the TV", the TV says that of course but that doesn't trigger the Hub to wake up. I tried splitting it into multiple events with delays and several other things but it basically appears that as soon as the Chromecast hears itself say Hey Google (does it even have a mic?), it freezes up for a few seconds (and shows the cast icon on the screen). So strange.

What am I missing here? Why is this so difficult?!?!

#2

Wrong assistant. All that stuff is so difficult with Google and years later they just don't care enough to make it better. Triggering routines on Alexa, making it say what you want, all so easy and effective. Not 100% functionality with Alexa, but pretty darn close.

#3

I have an echo dot here I bought to play around with but haven't really gotten around to doing much with it. How is TTS on that? If I install that, I can I have it turn off the Chromecast or tell the Google Hub to "Hey Google, Turn off the TV". Lol, that would be a crazy work around, using Alexa to talk to Google to do stuff. Thanks for the response.

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#4

That would work 100% and no crazier than having the TV tell your Google Hub to turn off the TV. I used to have my Echo sitting next to my Google Home Hub to tell it to set the volume level at different times of the day. They still don't have anything comparable. You can adjust assistant volume per time of day, but not a per device volume like you can with Echo.

Google home is a nice touch screen for your smart home control, but beyond that it's just pathetic how little they have accomplished versus what Amazon can do with Alexa.

There's lot's of differing examples of this code. All fairly similar. This one turns off in 12 seconds. You can just modify that number on the runin line to change how long you want it to be on before turning off automatically. There's a few better examples after my post, but this works just the same. Just need to trigger it manually the first time to get the default state.

You then just create and Alexa routine and have her speak the custom phrase you want on your Echo. As the trigger for that routine, you select the custom "Motion sensor as a switch" device you created that used your custom code as its driver. So anytime that switch is turned on from Hubitat, Alexa will think a motion sensor was triggered and since you set that virtual motion sensor as the trigger for the Alexa routine, it will speak your custom phrase.

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#5

This is super helpful. Thank you. Definitely going to bust out the Echo this weekend and start experimenting with it.

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