Hi All
I need clarification on how integration of hubitat with google home/assistance work. In the official doc ( Google Home - Hubitat Documentation) there is this note
" NOTE: This integration allows Google Home to control switches, dimmers, thermostats, RGB, RGBW and ColorTemperature bulbs that have been joined to your Hubitat Elevation hub, but the reverse is not possible. Devices that have been added directly to Google Home or Google Assistant cannot be shared with your Hubitat Elevation hub."
I have been using google home for a while and i use it to voice control ecobee thermostat, lutron caseta switches and hue bulbs. Few days ago i added hubitat hub to my ecosystem and integrated lutron, ecobee and hue with the hubitat (but not google, not yet). Everything seems to work well, i can still control everything as i did before with google speakers but i was also able to setup basic rules with lutron and hue (i added aqara motion sensor to hubitat) with hubitat. The same devices respond to google and to hubitat right now.
My question is what will change if i integrate google home and hubitat together? Specially the part that says "Devices that have been added directly to Google Home or Google Assistant cannot be shared with your Hubitat Elevation hub.", does this mean i will have to remove them from google 1st before i can control them with hubitat and through integration with google control them with google (for voice control mainly) that goes through hubitat?
What excatly do i gain be integrating Ghome with hubitat?
First off, welcome!
You can have both direct integrations as well as the hubitat integration without problems. You do, however, need to remember which ones are added where. For example, if you have Lutron connected via their Google integration, do not include them when choosing devices to share from Hubitat.
Example - I have Lutron as well, but I do not include when "sharing" to Google:
Instead, I add those directly to Google Home via linked services (like you already have).
You can add them via Hubitat, but you should definitely unlink the Lutron service if you do or you will have a mess of duplicates.
What this means is that if you add a device, say a Wifi switch to Google Home, it will ont be visible in Hubitat. You will be able to control it within Google Home, but not directly via Hubitat.
People have worked around that by creating routines in Google Home, and a virtual device in Hubitat. When the virtual device is turned on, the Google routine will be setup to turn on the device in Google Home. (And vice-versa)
Does that help clarify?
If you add a device directly to Google, and also add that device to hubitat, that's ok. But if you then share that device to Google from Hubitat via one of the integration apps, it will show twice on Google, which is annoying, but fairly harmless ( I think?)
Basically you have to choose if you want to be Hubitat Elevatio (HE) centric or not. I have tried both Google Home (GH) centric and HE centric approaches. I prefer to integrate all into HE, then integrate HE via Google Home app to Google Home. I have 30 WEMO devices integrated in HE via WEMO Connect app. They get pulled into Google Home via the HE integration app with GH. Works well. Ditto for EcoBee thermostats and sensors, Kasa devices, etc.
I do actually have a mixture. I am mainly HE centred - sharing via HE to Google and Alexa. But for some cloud devices (eg Netatmo and Sensibo) I have found that the session times out at intervals of several days, and I don't always find out for a while, which makes everything inaccurate (they keep reporting the last values they had before the connection closed). It's easy to reconnect via each app once I find out but for those devices affected I now actually connect directly to Google Home, which seems able to keep the connections open, or even just use their own apps directly.
Thank you all, i got it now. I didnt know that i will be able to pick which devices to integrate when setting google home app in HE.
@cciszew I would add lutron, and any zigbee devices directly to hubitat and expose them to google via google integration app. That way you have more controled automation.
Not possible as far as I know. GH routines cannot be triggered by a virtual device or switch. They can only be triggered by voice, time (including sunrise/sunset) or dismissing an alarm, unfortunately.
Oh right! You can do this in Alexa but not in Google Home…
So i would delete all lutron devices from google home 1st then authorize GH to get access to lutron using GH app in hubitat, right?. The only thing i fail to grasp is the advantage between one method vs the other, right now i have exactly the same functionality, maybe i need to start setting up more complicated automation to see the difference.
No real advantage either way that I've found. Both work equally well. At least for Lutron.
There are some devices where I keep it directly connected to Google Home because it is the manufacturer's official integration and the HE app is a community developed one. While the developers here are generally very good and the apps work well, their development is reactionary and they have to scramble to keep up with any breaking API changes (especially if the API is unofficial).
You will need the Lutron pro hub. You install the Lutron integration app on HE, then on your lutron app on your phone you run an integration report. Then import that into hubitat and boom... All your light switches created... Takes about 5 mins
That's what it's all about. Automation, not remote control. 
My biggest complaint is how Google sees all devices coming over from HE as device type Light and automatically groups them together in the Room. My Smart Bulbs come in as a Light, my Smart switches come in as a Light. If integrated directly, I can change the device type so I can diifferentiate my Smart Switches controllimg ceiling fans and exhaust fans from those controllimg light fixtures and outlets. The fans get changed to device type switch and they show up as indivual devices in the room on Google Home app. The lights remain as device type Light and get grouped together with no option to keep them as individual devices unless you change the device type. With the HE integration, you do not have this option.
Have you looked at the community integration? Lots of improvements in there.
I did not know there was in. What is the name and author. Just did search and didnt find it.
I am using this : [Alpha] Community-maintained Google Home integration, it is actively supported by the author and is working OK for me, although I rarely use it actually... The trick I used was to move all the devices that I don't want to be turned off (because recognized as a Light) into a fictive/virtual room - my window shades as an example.
This saved me, thanks for the idea.
Recap:
- Create a virtual switch in Hubitat
- Import it into Google Home (and allow it in the Google Home app in Hubitat)
- Create 2 custom household routines in Google Home for Google home to react to the Hubitat Switch (one for On and one for Off)
- Create 2 custom household routines in Google home to reflect the Google Home status (On/Off) of the vacuum cleaner into the Hubitat Virtual Switch
- Do anything with the virtual switch; I added it into a Dash
I agree with YapFlapper. The Hubitat Google home integration needs some more control of the devices. To be honest having recently transitioned from SmartThings, this integration feels like a small step backward. I looked at the community integration. I believe it is much more powerful. However, I was unwilling to devote the energy required to configure it.
It would be great if we could have an integration with the best of both worlds. The easy and straight forward setup of the Hubitat integration AND the control to adjust how google sees each device. I would also like the ability share sensors and other devices that I believe Google home is now able to interact with.
