Police Scanner Idea

[Igorski88]

Thanks for reporting back. I'll switch to virtual device!

[ksum]

My test had Google Home only turn on lights and not open my garage door. The Virtual Device I have to do this is called "Open Garage Door" and is an On/Off item. The command did not turn on my ceiling fans nor open the garage door. My Ceiling Fans are called (floor) (room) Ceiling Fan Fan while the light on that fan is called (floor) (room) Ceiling Fan Light and all of my lights do have the term Light in them.

The other use for the Virtual Device comes in play with HSTouch where you could have a Button for the Device Item and that then runs the event. With the newer phone/tablet interface being developed one could speculate the virtual device may be needed in early releases. I do not know if they are putting event control in that or not, just suggesting a possibility.

[Igorski88]

Partially right. For a physical Z-Wave device, under the root, Z-Wave settings you can disable responding to ALL ON/OFF commands. Can't find it for a virtual device.

Google assistances all ON/OFF commands are not tied into homeseer. Its separate. But you got me thinking.... "Turn off all lights" should only work for devices with the word "light" in it.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[AutomatedJim]

I think you can disable a device from responding to ALL ON/OFF commands.

Partially right. For a physical Z-Wave device, under the root, Z-Wave settings you can disable responding to ALL ON/OFF commands. Can't find it for a virtual device.

[AutomatedJim]

That's a great idea. I'm glad you shared it! I thought about it as an option for a second but I would hate for it to be triggered once I say "Ok Google, turn on all the lights". My IFTTT delay is not noticable. If it becomes noticable I'll try your idea. Thanks

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I think you can disable a device from responding to ALL ON/OFF commands.

[Igorski88]

I will have to test that command when I get home. I forgot the ALL ON and ALL OFF commands were z-wave and didn't think it Google Home/Assistant might not recognize the difference.

I'm excited to hear back.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[ksum]

... I would hate for it to be triggered once I say "Ok Google, turn on all the lights".

I will have to test that command when I get home. I forgot the ALL ON and ALL OFF commands were z-wave and didn't think it Google Home/Assistant might not recognize the difference.

[Igorski88]

Nice!! Instead of running IFTTT I would just have a Virtual Device called something like "Play Scanner" and set your event to trigger on that device becoming "On" Set another event to stop playback when that becomes "Off" and then you can have Google Home/Assistant change that device's value. I do this for a contact closure unit to open/close my garage door. In my case the event turn the old contact closure device on for a second then off again. With this, you don't need IFTTT and will get the event run sooner.

That's a great idea. I'm glad you shared it! I thought about it as an option for a second but I would hate for it to be triggered once I say "Ok Google, turn on all the lights". My IFTTT delay is not noticable. If it becomes noticable I'll try your idea. Thanks

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[ksum]

Nice!! Instead of running IFTTT I would just have a Virtual Device called something like "Play Scanner" and set your event to trigger on that device becoming "On" Set another event to stop playback when that becomes "Off" and then you can have Google Home/Assistant change that device's value. I do this for a contact closure unit to open/close my garage door. In my case the event turn the old contact closure device on for a second then off again. With this, you don't need IFTTT and will get the event run sooner.

[Igorski88]

Ok so I had an Idea and I thought I would share it. I live in the DC outskirts and often hear sirens. Well.... I'm always curious as to whats going on. Maybe curiosity killed the cat but i'm still alive!! So What I did was I used the chromecast plugin to play a police scanner in my area. Since I did not find anything similar while I was google, I figured I would share how I did it. Its quite simple actually.

Step 1: Go to https://www.broadcastify.com/ --> Click Listen ---> Find your location --> choose the stream you want.

Step 2: We need to get the Stream Url and MIME type. Select "HTML5 Web Player" in the drop down ---> Press play.



A new screen will open up. Right click anywhere on the screen and click on "view page source"



In the page source look for the <audio> Tags. Copy the "src" and the type. The type is your MIME.




Step 3: Add a Chromecast event with an action type of "Cast media". Everything else should be self explained.



Step 4: Trigger the event with IFTTT. I Used the google assistant chanal to listen for words like "Whats going on out there?" or "I hear sirens" and it triggers the event with the Homeseer channel.

End result: "Ok google, whats going on out there?" --> my google home responds with: "I don't know but listen to the Police scanner together and find out" --> then the stream begins.

Thanks goes out to SPUD for such an awesome plugin!!!