Apologies in advance if I’m asking a question that has been answered before someplace else I tried looking and couldn’t find it
I am trying to understand how I can have a physical motion sensor tied to a virtual motion sensor and have the virtual one reflecting the state of the physical one. I have created the virtual sensor, but I cannot figure out how to go into rule machine, or wherever else I should go to create the connection between the physical and the virtual. I want to have the virtual. motion sensor show up in Alexa and use it as a trigger to create a routine so that a specified camera will be shown on the screen when there’s motion detected on the sensor. I have added the virtual motion detector to Alexa and it is showing up as a device and I actually can use that in a routine to trigger displaying the camera on an echo show. It’s just at this point when the physical motion detector is active it’s not connecting to the virtual to make that change for it to trigger the action. I’m sorry if I’m not making sense. I’m old and it’s late and I’m irritated. I tried asking the little AI friends that are out there and they’re all telling me to do things but I’m not finding what they’re specifically instructing to do in rule machine. Appreciate any help, Thanks!
Trigger - motion active on real device
Action - run custom action (capability motion then pick the virtual motion detector) > select custom command 'active'
The above is certainly one way you can do this, but I have to ask: why not use the real sensor if you want their states to match? Does your real sensor not work as a "trigger" in Alexa, or are you looking to distinguish them sometimes and not others? If not, that would be more straightforward.
When I look in Alexa, even though all of my Z wave and Zigbee motion detectors are checked in the Amazon echo app, they do not show as being available to use in any routines in Alexa. The motion detection on all of the cameras that I have (Wyze, Ring and Tapo) that are linked to Alexa do show as available to use in routines. I have a couple of places where I have motion detectors that sense motion (used mainly to turn lights on) before any cameras in the area react to motion so I was hoping to be able to get a routine set up that as soon as the motion detector is active it will send an alert to Alexa which can be used to create a routine to show the nearby camera on the screen on my Echo show device. I hope I’m explaining it correctly. It certainly is something I can live without, but I was just trying to see if I could do it. I was exploring what I can do with Alexa+ and it’s pretty simple to say create a routine to show this camera on echo screen when there’s motion. And a few seconds later, I get the message that it has been created. I need to come up with a virtual motion detector device that I can use in the routine instead of the camera motion.
I have created the virtual motion sensor. When I look at the virtual device, it is showing active and inactive, but also showing temperature. Trying to figure out if there’s a way for that temperature to also get included in the virtual device correctly from the physical device. But that’s for another day. Right now I’m just trying to get the virtual device to get the correct status from the physical device. When I go into rule machine, I have the physical device that is the trigger. But I’m still confused as to which choice to use for the action with the virtual one. I think I just have a mental block in doing all the if/then stuff in rule machine. I am usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out when there are directions I can follow. I mean, I managed to set up echo speaks without using Heroku App on my raspberry pi with help from a very nice gentleman. And I have another raspberry pi set up with Home Assistant running in a docker container which I’ve just begun exploring. I just finished updating my older iMac using OpenCore Legacy Patcher so it no longer feels like an abandoned orphan not able to join the Apple universe of things.
The hubitat apps basic rules, simple rules, rule machine legacy I can/could figure out but Rule Machine 5.1 I get stuck.
I think this might do what you are looking for. Alexa will not let you use a motion sensor. A solution is Virtual Switch uDTH Lite (user) It is a virtual motion sensor that reports as a switch which works for Alexa routines.
Thank you so much for pointing me to this. I added it and have a virtual device created with it setting it to be motion.
Now to figure out the rule machine part. I sometimes feel like rule machine is overkill for a simple task like what I’m trying to do.
I used to think similar but I just use it for all rules now however simple. I found it a pain starting a Basic Rule then finding some option wasn't there that was in Rule Machine.
Similar observation. Learned rule machine, which has a way to do it all instead of having my automations scattered over several apps. Although, I do like the button app for it's visual layout and how rule machine like it is.
You could definitely use a Simple Automation rule to turn on and off the virtual switch when motion is detected. I do this with a contact sensor and Virtual Motion/switch for use in Motion Lighting rules. I find that Simple Automation rules respond faster since there is less overhead.
I did end up using simple rules. With my goal not being very complicated it was quicker to do it this way rather than rule machine. There is no doubt that rule machine is great when you have complicated steps to accomplish, but in this case, it is overkill for what I needed.
