The WAF took a hit this last weekend with Alexa. It took at least 8 tries for my wife to turn off the kitchen lights. She was even reading the exact phrase it put on the fridge. I did some research and it looks like Siri can be better and we are a Mac/iOS family so am thinking of setting up Homebridge. I checked and my Synology it to old to run Docker or Hoobs. But it looks like setting up on a RPi with Hoobs is not hard.
Questions
Is Siri that muck better than Alexa?
Can Siri work over cell or does it need to be on the network?
What steps do I need to get Hubitat to talk with Homebridge?
Can I control all my Hubitat devices with Siri, or do I need to set up virtual switches or something like that?
So far I can do everything I need in Hubitat and don’t know if I would use HomeKit for any devices. My daughter would like some automation in her room would it make sense to keep all of that on HomeKit?
I am still new to Hubitat, came over from Wink. The problem is Hubitat was easy to setup buy watching a few videos ant I missed a lot my not having to read the manual.
You'd need a Raspberry PI to use as the HomeBridge server then you use the built-in Maker API app on the Hubitat side to make your devices available to the Home app. I use my Apple TV 4K as the Home server so that it's always available even when I'm out of the house. Siri works well and I like that I have to unlock my cell phone before Siri will unlock a door or open the garage but she will lock or close the door with the phone locked. I use Alexa most of the time though since I don't have Siri devices through the house since they are so much more expensive than Echo devices.
@Terk has answered the rest of your questions, except this one.
Response time is about the same. Accuracy is about the same. For use during driving, Apple Carplay is more reliable than the two Alexa car gadgets I've used.
I actually find Siri does a better job interpreting my requests and is more responsive than Alexa. I'm using Homebride on an RPI3 utilizing the MakerAPI Plugin and resurrected an old iPad as a Homepod so I can use Siri when remote.
You didn't ask, but Google home works pretty well. I would put it in first place regarding both interpretation and responsiveness.
There are some very simple tips and tricks you can use to make Alexa much simpler to interact with. We have multiple Amazon Echo devices in the house.
I find it best to use the Amazon Alexa App on my phone/tablet to:
Create an Alexa Group named "Kitchen"
Add the appropriate Amazon Echo to the Alexa Group "Kitchen"
Add whatever lights I want to control from Hubitat to the Alexa Group "Kitchen"
Now, when speaking that that particular Amazon Echo, all you need to do is say "Alexa, turn on the lights" and all of the lights within that Alexa group will turn off. Same for "Alexa, turn off the lights".
You can also simply say "Alexa, turn on Kitchen" or "Alexa, turn off Kitchen" where "Kitchen" is the name of the Alexa group. This works very well, too.
My advice is don't give up on Alexa so quickly. I doubt you'll find Siri 'listens' any better. It takes some time to get things set up for optimal performance and ease of use, regardless of whether you choose to use Alexa, Google, or Siri.
Google Home does great at answering questions... but it's home automation features are severely lacking behind both Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit these days... Google Home Routines can still only be triggered by voice or time of day, unless something has changed recently. And Google shut down the Works With Nest program, breaking so many integrations....without any replacement solution yet, that they promised would be available... GRRR!!!
Thanks for all the great and informative replies. Answered the questions I asked and even the ones I didn’t ask but should have.
Even though I would like to play around with a RPi and setup Homebridge I think for now I’ll do the @ogiewon said and spend some time with Alexa. Right now we don’t do much with voice since we just have one Dot. To bad Apple doesn’t have a cheap option like a Dot, or a HomePod that doesn’t cost $300. I have been looking to get a smart speaker but not sure what to get yet. That’s a whole other can of worms. I’m thinking a IKEA/Sonos unless someone can suggest a better option.
I read they were coming out with a cheaper version this fall. I don’t know how reliable the source was. I set up Homebridge just for the iPhone integration. Myself and my kids prefer Home to the Alexa app, but we have 13 echos for speech in the house. Basically you need one for each room to make it easier to set up so you don’t have to remember what you have named everything.
Edit: I didn’t mention my wife since she is seemingly unaware that she can use actual wall switches or iPhone apps to control anything. She insists on yelling at Alexa, no matter how much more complicated it may be to do so.
Also I am not sure about Siri or GA, but Alexa has pretty great support on Node-RED, if that is your sort of thing. I originally and continue to have issues with "Alexa, turn the lights on/off" from a given room, which do not get me wrong is magical when it works, but I spent a couple hours on the support line trying to troubleshoot, but they were borderline useless, telling me this feature did not exist at all. My issues was that it turns all devices on/off as opposed to just the devices categorized as 'lights', so when I said turn off lights, it turned off the TV and the fans in the room.
So I took it into my own hands and recreated the functionality in NR including a bunch of other functions like mode based volume control, good Morning and goodnight flows to name a few. I use node-red-contrib-alexa-remote2 for anyone interested.
Glenn
How old of an iPad did you resurrect? I'm curious, I need to come up with a similar solution for a HomePod, and have a VERY old iPad2, or my old iPhone 6 that I still haven't sent in for the now down to $60 store credit at apple. So if the iPad is too old, I'm wondering if I can use the phone for the HomePod. Thoughts?
It's actually a first generation iPad Air (A1475) running IOS 12.4.8. Pretty sure its the release that governs whether it will work as a Home Hub. It was a good option since I had it lying around with a cracked screen.
I did some research and it looks like Siri can be better and we are a Mac/iOS family so am thinking of setting up Homebridge. I checked and my Synology it to old to run Docker or Hoobs. But it looks like setting up on a RPi with Hoobs is not hard.
