I am a current user of alexa for around 2 years and with around 50 devices connected to, obviously, all wifi.
I just want to make sure there is not a way that i can virtualy use the current ones on my HE? even if they dont work when i dont have internet? i will be buying from now on only zigbee or zwave, but on the meantime i want to still get the best of them, working all together with the HE...
Depending on the devices you may be able to set up virtual device on HE and then use Alexa routines to keep everyone in sync. EX: Smart outlet on Alexa, create virtual on HE, then create two routines 1) checks the virtual on HE for On and turns on Alexa device, 2) checks the virtual on HE for Off and turns off the Alexa device.
Read this thread. It talks about how anything you can say to an Echo can be the output of rules and such in HE. It lets any cloud only device to integrate into HE. You will not need ports, IPs, etc, just whatever you would say is part of a custom action.
Then create a virtual switch using it as the driver. Go to the Amazon Echo app and add the virtual switch in the Selected Devices area, after you update and click done, the virtual switch should be available in Alexa.
great i did it, thanks! i am just looking over to make it reflect back on HE for example if its turned on directly from alexa and not with a routine sent from HE
It gets complicated, but its great for implementing anything that. I modified the virtual driver to be left in the state set (ie if I turn it off, say off). You probably saw that in the thread - the driver is for a three second momentary contact if my memory is correct.