Poll & Discussion: Activity Devices for Voice control

[sirmeili]

I am thinking of adding a new feature. This feature would create a new "Voice Control" Device for each activity on the hub (except "Power Off").

These devices would be useful for controlling your Harmony Via Google Home or Amazon Echos. They would have only two values: On and Off.

The plugin would track changes to these devices and if you turn one of these devices "On", it would trigger the associated activity. If you turned any of these devices "Off", it would trigger the "PowerOff" event.

I'm thinking this could be done pretty simple or very complex. For instance, the plugin could track the activity status for these devices so say you have an activity called "Roku" on your "Living Room" hub. If you turn on that activity, not only would the existing "activity" device show "Roku", but this Voice control device would now show "On" (and all the other Voice control devices would show off).

On the other hand, these VC devices could just be "dumb" and not track if that activity is active or not. The could just be used for triggering an activity over voice control When an "On" command is sent, the plugin will change to that activity, no matter the status of the voice control device.

The "complex" approach would have some downsides. It would add overhead for tracking those plugins and adds more points of failure. I, personally am leaning towards the simple "dumb" device approach.

Please vote in the Poll and discuss in this thread!

[Ltek]

I am thinking of adding a new feature. This feature would create a new "Voice Control" Device for each activity on the hub (except "Power Off").

These devices would be useful for controlling your Harmony Via Google Home or Amazon Echos. They would have only two values: On and Off.

The plugin would track changes to these devices and if you turn one of these devices "On", it would trigger the associated activity. If you turned any of these devices "Off", it would trigger the "PowerOff" event.

I'm thinking this could be done pretty simple or very complex. For instance, the plugin could track the activity status for these devices so say you have an activity called "Roku" on your "Living Room" hub. If you turn on that activity, not only would the existing "activity" device show "Roku", but this Voice control device would now show "On" (and all the other Voice control devices would show off).

On the other hand, these VC devices could just be "dumb" and not track if that activity is active or not. The could just be used for triggering an activity over voice control When an "On" command is sent, the plugin will change to that activity, no matter the status of the voice control device.

The "complex" approach would have some downsides. It would add overhead for tracking those plugins and adds more points of failure. I, personally am leaning towards the simple "dumb" device approach.

Please vote in the Poll and discuss in this thread!

I'm not sure I follow...

Why do you need separate devices when Homeseer devices have a Voice Control option that can be used in Alexa?

Alexa already has direct integration so lm not understanding why we'd use Homeseer in the middle?

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[sirmeili]

I'm not sure I follow...

Why do you need separate devices when Homeseer devices have a Voice Control option that can be used in Alexa?

Alexa already has direct integration so lm not understanding why we'd use Homeseer in the middle?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Because my Harmony Activity devices currently hold all the devices for the hub. For instance, my Boy's room has:

Watch Roku
Play Leap Frog
Watch TV

(and Power Off)

They are 4 status values on the same device

Google Home and Alexa won't let me control a device like this. I can't say "Hey google, Set my Living room Harmony Hub to Watch TV". You could probably do this with he "Tell Homeseer" Alexa service.

Some users get around this by creating their own Virtual Device which will trigger an Event. This would be a shortcut to that. The plugin itself would be triggered by the virtual device and change the activity for the user.

I hope this makes better sense.

[Ltek]

Because my Harmony Activity devices currently hold all the devices for the hub. For instance, my Boy's room has:

Watch Roku
Play Leap Frog
Watch TV

(and Power Off)

They are 4 status values on the same device

Google Home and Alexa won't let me control a device like this. I can't say "Hey google, Set my Living room Harmony Hub to Watch TV". You could probably do this with he "Tell Homeseer" Alexa service.

Some users get around this by creating their own Virtual Device which will trigger an Event. This would be a shortcut to that. The plugin itself would be triggered by the virtual device and change the activity for the user.

I hope this makes better sense.

Gotcha thx

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[sirmeili]

Gotcha thx

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And as for the direct control via Alexa, if it's like the Google Home and Logitech Harmony integration, you can only have 1 hub. I have 4 hubs in my house. So in my bedroom I can't say "Hey Google, tell harmony to watch roku in the master bedroom".

If I could have more than 1 hub on my google account, I would never have thought of this feature. It would just be nice to walk into a room and say "Hey Google, turn on the [room] Roku"

[Winnah9000]

I actually have mine set up this way with dummy devices that are tracked with triggers in HomeSeer so I don't have to say a complicated phrase. I can do "Alexa, turn on Bedroom TV" and it'll trigger Watch TV, same with turn off to trigger PowerOff.

I'm not sure this needs to be built in to the plug-in, most users with HomeSeer can handle the extra steps and fine tuning to add dummy devices themselves.

[cfrudolphy]

I use virtual devices. I only have one hub in my living room. I have a Samsung TV, Yamaha AVR, Panasonic BluRay, and a Direct TV DVR/Sat Receiver. I have an Amazon Dot connected to the Yamaha AVR.

On the hub I have 3 activities, Watch TV, Watch Movie, and Alexa. I have created virtual devices for Watch TV and Watch Movie.

I tell Alexa to "Turn Watch TV On" that is the trigger of an event that starts the Watch TV activity on the hub. Same with Watch Movie. If I tell Alexa to turn either off it starts the "Alexa" activity in the hub which just turns the Yamaha AVR on and switchs the input to what the Dot is connected to.

When you are watching Satellite TV or a Movie the Dot is "mute" because the Yamaha AVR has been switched to a different input. She will still respond to commands, you just don't hear her acknowledge or answer. As soon as you turn off those other activities the Dot is "un-muted" and you can hear the responses or as we like to do stream music.

Just paid for your plug-in. This does a great job, thank you for your good work. I also like the fact that you are continuing to think of ways to enhance and ask questions such as this.

Chuck

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[Ltek]

I like Chuck's method with connection for Alexa into the Avr.

Having the plugin control, and track, the virtual devices would be a good thing imo.


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[sirmeili]

I have added option 2 above. I am looking at adding the last option (tracking of status for these new devices), but I"m not there yet. For my needs, I only needed the ability to create the device and control it via voice without creating a bunch of events.

If the third option above is really wanted, I will add an option to turn on tracking for these devices and keep them in sync.

[randy]

OK, I have been using these devices for a week and they are working fine. I was using Virtual Devices and Events. This option definitely saves some time creating Devices and Events.

With regard to syncing the Virtual Devices, in practice I see no absolute need to sync them, but it would definitely be cleaner having them sync'd for HSTouch and for general consistency.

[sirmeili]

OK, I have been using these devices for a week and they are working fine. I was using Virtual Devices and Events. This option definitely saves some time creating Devices and Events.

With regard to syncing the Virtual Devices, in practice I see no absolute need to sync them, but it would definitely be cleaner having them sync'd for HSTouch and for general consistency.

Thanks for the feedback. I use them quite a lot here at the house and am loving it. I am planning on making an option to have them sync as well.

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