Alexa + SmartThings + IFTTT + Harmony to turn TV on and off by voice (2015 version)

I’ve tried this many many times over the last three weeks or so. When I select my 14 activities as things and click next, I would get the red error banner across the top of the app. I was unable to successfully add them as things.

However, I just tried this again 5 minutes ago and it worked. Now I have all my 14 activities as things. The only difference? I was not on my own wifi. I was at work when I did this. I don’t really think that made a difference, but it’s kinda weird.

Thank you.

Anyway to tell Alexa to pause the tv . Or to stop playback, like you can on Xbox one ?

It’s pretty clunky, but you can do it. Since I’m quadriparetic, I do use a pause, but I expect most physically able people will prefer to just use the buttons on the remote.

Anyway, it’s just like everything else. The first thing you have to do is set up a harmony activity that does exactly what you want. To get a pause, create a new activity, select the appropriate device and then select the pause button for a “step” in the starting sequence.

So it’s the same as the example given above in post 285 for changing the volume.

Once you have the pause activity set up, you can use echo to trigger that activity the same way you do for any other activity. :sunglasses:

Tried this and for some reason it wants to turn everything off. The start commands has no off commands in it at all. It has Amazon Fire tv on and pause that’s it. Not sure why it’s turning things off .

The basic Harmony process will turn off any devices not needed by the next activity unless they are marked as “always on.”

For example, I have a cable set top box (STB), a television, a Roku, DVD player, and an Xbox.

When I switch from the harmony activities " Watch cable" to “watch Roku” the cable box stays on because I have it marked as “always on.”

When I switch from the harmony activity “watch Roku” to “watch DVD” The Roku turns off because it is no longer needed. The TV stays on because it is needed for both activities. How does harmony know the TV is needed for both activities? I have included the TV in those activities.

So for your pause activity you need to include all the devices that you want to have stay on. So in my case I have one harmony activity for “pause DVD” and a different harmony activity for “pause Roku.” That’s because different devices are on for those activities.

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Thanks I got it . (20 char)

@JDRoberts How is the Alexa Trigger -> Harmony via IFTTT working for you? I have been using Alexa/Harmony and ST integration to this point and it’s worked really well, but am trying to simplify my ST setup and also remove any dependencies on ST for obvious reasons of possibly moving to another platform one day.

I use mine every day and it works well. Occasionally there’s enough lag to be noticeable, up to about 15 seconds, but that’s only once or twice a week. Most of the time it’s not instantaneous, but it’s conversational… Ask echo to do something, it gets done in 6 to 8 seconds. :sunglasses: So I’m happy with it, but it might be a little slow for some people. It’s been very reliable for me.

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Thanks. I’ve come to the realization that I will have integrations all over the place and I am going to choose the ones that are most reliable when I can. I am also trying to make the transition to either a v2 or another hub as painless as possible, and doing this with IFTTT accomplishes that. Perhaps it can also solve my Watch ESPN problem where it puts ESPN radio on instead of the actual Harmony Activity. Must test when I get home…

So I setup the IFTTT to Amazon Echo/Harmony integration, a few observations:

  1. The Smartthings integration is definitely quicker by a couple of seconds
  2. My wife hates the word “trigger” as we have a 3 year old son who repeats everything and the word “trigger” is associated with guns and she doesn’t like it. Interesting point I never thought about, but Amazon could have chosen another word given the times we live in these days
  3. I hate how Alexa says “sending to IFTTT” as it difficult to understand. It took me awhile to figure out what she said. I prefer the “Ok”.
  4. Using IFTTT directly seems to work favorably with saying things like Trigger ABC or Trigger ESPN.

For the reasons 1-3 mentioned above, I will stick with the ST-Harmony-Integration for now.

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Is there a way to use my echo and harmony home hub to just control the volume without having the “power on” and "power off " devices in the harmony activity? I would like to control the volume of my TV through my echo. Can anybody recommend a solution to this?

I know this is a long thread, but changing volume is discussed at least four times in this very topic, along with the reasons why you’re seeing devices powered off. There are even screenshots showing how the activity is set up in post 285 above. I don’t really want to repeat everything again.

The quick answer is that everything in harmony is based on activities. So the first step is always to set up a Harmony activity that does exactly what you want. Once you have that, it’s simple to activate it through echo.

Each time harmony starts an activity, it does the following:

  1. leaves on any devices which are required for the new activity that were also used by the previous activity

  2. turns on any new devices which are required for the new activity that were not used by the previous activity

Three) Turns off any devices which were required by the old activity that are not used by the new activity and are not listed as “always on” devices.

So when you’re seeing things go off when you change the new activity but you want them to stay on, you just have to include them in the new activity as well.

So the question you’re asking about is really a harmony question. Not a SmartThings question. Once you have a harmony activity that set up that will change the volume The way you want, you can use it with smart things.

There are a number of other issues involved with this, but again, they’ve already been covered in this thread several times.

I will mention that the method is clunky. I use it because I am quadriparetic with limited hand control, and I don’t have any other good way of changing the volume. But I think most people who are physically able to use the regular harmony button remote will prefer that.

There’s an alternative to the Harmony Hub, it’s to use an ESP8266 as an universal IR remote, it’s controllable via ST and subsequently with Alexa.

See my project where I control a tower fan with ST & Echo

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How are you doing the ST-Harmony integration? I used the connect app to create all my switches and then added those switches to Echo. I created a group for each one so I could rename the switches to some easier to say. If I ask Alexa to turn on my Living Room TV it does, but the light just spins for awhile and she says the device isn’t responding. So it works, but it’s annoying that Alexa says it doesn’t when it does. Turning off sometimes work, it just spins awhile before saying okay.

Don’t bother with ST to use Alexa with Harmony. Yonomi is better and easier to setup.

I’ll have to look into it, but I would prefer not to use another app.

I felt that way too, but after realizing how much more efficient it is and easier it is to setup, I changed my tune. Plus doing the integration with ST creates a ton of clutter in Smartthings with so many apps and virtual switches if you create a lot of Harmony activities.

Are you still using your ST hub or did you ditch entirely?

Very much so, I rely on it heavily. Nothing else meets my requirements.

I hear yah, I am in the same boat. Besides a few minor annoyances, there is nothing better.