A month back I purchased the new Aeotec hub, serveral Aeotec Multipurpose Sensors to use on closet doors and the Aeotec Door/Window Sensor 7 to use on my barn. Dipping my toe in the automation eco system.
Google Home sees the Aeotec Multipurpose Sensor and sees when the Aeotec Multipurpose Sensor is Open and Closed.
When I go in to Google Home and create a new routine
I then select the “When a Device does something” Under the Starter section
If I select the Aeotec Multipurpose Sensor as a starter the “Add Starter” button at the bottom right of the Goggle Home screen stays greyed out.
I am not able to selected any Aeotec Sensor as a Starter.
This leads me to believe Google Home is not compatiable with Aeotec Sensors. I’ve spent the last 4 hours searching and reading and searching and not finding very much info related to Aeotec Devices as a Google Home Starter.
Has anyone else ran in to this same issue or have a workaround? I want to use the Aeotec Multipurpose Sensor as a starter to turn on Feit smart recessed lighting and Feit smart lightbulbs.
I don’t know about the issues with that specific sensor model, but since Google routines can be triggered from a virtual switch, I believe some community members use that as a workaround. They use a smartthings routine (not a Google routine) to have the multi sensor trigger a Virtual switch coming on. Then use a Google routine to have the virtual switch coming on as the starter for the next action.
It’s clunky, but it can work depending on the details.
Google Homes is still a bit behind the times with sensors (or perhaps I should say expectations, which may or may not be realistic). Although Google Assistant has been able to import contact and temperature sensors and allow you to query them by voice for years now, the corresponding tiles in Google Home did absolutely nothing. Only relatively recently have the tiles started displaying contact and temperature status.
Google still doesn’t seem to import presence and motion sensors from SmartThings, which is a little ironic as motion sensors were the first type of sensors that Google said they would be supporting alongside various types of on/off devices as routine starters. Curiously, as mentioned, contact sensors do get offered for selection as routine starters and actions, but no conditions can be created.
So currently using switches, as @JDRoberts suggested, seems to be the only option.
I should add the disclaimer that I can only offer a UK perspective. Historically the availability of Google Home functionality in the UK has trailed the first appearances elsewhere by anything from a few weeks to a couple of years.
They’re not incompatible, but as orangebucket mentioned; GH is slow to integrate device type recognition. If you use the Google Home script editor, you are able to create automations which are based on the multipurpose sensor’s open/close state as a starter. I’ve explained the process here:
Going to the SmartThings Menu on my Andriod Phone I could see the “Lab” feature.
I used the Virtual Switch feature to add a new virtual switch called "Master Closet vSwitch.
In the Smartthings app I created a routine with the Aeotec Multipurpose Sensor to turn my virtual switch on and another to turn it off.
I then switched to the Goggle Home app and refreshed the screen. My new virtual switch appeared.
I was then able to create a Goggle Home routine to use the virtual switch to turn the Feit closet lights on and off.
Ahhh glad you mentioned this. I’ve been tinkering for the last 45 mins and have not perfected the on / off yet.
The Google Home app sees the open / closed status change with the virtual switch I created in the Smartthings app but its no longer turning the Feit recessed lights on or off.
More tinkering to happen.
After tinkering more with the SmartThings Virtual switch @Dennis and not getting the results I wanted I decided to explore your suggestion of the Google Home Script Editor. WOH!!! I’m a little sleep deprived and may have gotten hooked. The Google Home Script Editor has been working flawlessly all this past week. I hope the below code is usefull to others. I want to add additional code that will set the brightness and color of the closet lights based on time of day. My cats pops open the closet doors in the middle of the night and the White lights have woken me up. Im going to try and figure out how to make the clost lights RED and 50% brightness between 9pm and 7am.
Working Code as of 21 Oct 2023
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #
# Lines starting with “#” are comments and will be ignored by the automation.
# Indentation determines hierarchy within the script.
# Visit g.co/home/script-editor-docs for full documentation.
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #
metadata:
name: MB Closet Light ON # Choose a short name that summarizes important starters and actions, like “Sunset lights”.
description: Turn MB Closet Light ON When Door Opens. Using Aeotec Door Sensor to turn on Feit Recessed Lights
automations:
# “starters” and “actions” are required; “conditions” are optional.
# Use Ctrl + Space to see autocomplete suggestions.
# ---- STARTERS ---- #
# Starters describe events that will start the automation.
# To add more than one starter, duplicate the "- type" section under "starters".
# If you add multiple starter events, any one of them happening will start the automation.
starters:
- type: device.state.OpenClose
state: openPercent
# [available operators: is, isNot, lessThan, lessThanOrEqualTo, greaterThan, greaterThanOrEqualTo]
is: 100
device: Master BR Closet Sensor - Master Bedroom
# ---- CONDITIONS ---- #
# Conditions are optional. Delete this section if it’s empty.
# Conditions will prevent an automation from starting if the conditions aren’t met.
# See g.co/home/script-editor-docs for documentation about how to use logical operators like “and”, “or”, and “not”.
condition:
type: time.between
# Optional. Accepts either clock time (10:00:00 AM, with seconds optional, or in a 24 hour format), or 'sunrise' or 'sunset', with an optional offset ('sunrise+10m', for instance)
before: 21:00 # HH:MM (24 hours format). Adjust time as needed
# Optional. Accepts either clock time (10:00:00 AM, with seconds optional, or in a 24 hour format), or 'sunrise' or 'sunset', with an optional offset ('sunrise+10m', for instance)
after: 07:00 # HH:MM (24 hours format). Adjust time as needed
# Optional. Days of the week to apply condition on.
# ---- ACTIONS ---- #
# Actions will start when a starter event takes place and all conditions are met.
# Actions will start in the order they appear in the script and with any delay specified.
# To add more than one action, duplicate the "- type" section under "actions".
actions:
- type: device.command.OnOff # Turn the device on.
devices: Master Bedroom Lights - Master Bedroom
on: true
- type: time.delay
for: 3min
# Set MB Closet Lights to 100 Percent Brightness
- type: device.command.BrightnessAbsolute # Adjust device absolute brightness.
brightness: 100
devices: Master Bedroom Lights - Master Bedroom
# Set MB Closet Lights Color to Bright White
- type: device.command.ColorAbsolute
color:
name: white
devices: Master Bedroom Lights - Master Bedroom
# Turns Group Master Bedroom Lights off after 3min
- type: device.command.OnOff # Turn the device off.
devices: Master Bedroom Lights - Master Bedroom
on: false
Sleep deprivation is a notorious side-effect of smart home automation.
If you want the lights to wake you up, then red light is not recommended. Unlike blue or white light, the spectrum of red light actually helps promote falling asleep. If your lights support degrees Kelvin above 6000, try changing device.command.ColorAbsolute to use the temperature key, instead of name.
