Automation to Toggle magic home led lights with harmony activity?

Hi, first time reaching out to the community for help.

I have a set of LED lights behind my television that are controlled by a wifi connected controller that uses the magic home app.

I want an automation where I can turn on my “watch TV” activity with remote or through Alexa and when that happens the lights are turned on (preferably only during night).

I have tried doing this through stringify, IFTT, and ST and haven’t gotten anything to work. The lights are not directly compatible with ST although there is a clunky workaround using a virtual switch.

I thought I had it when I used an automation in ST to flip the virtual switch when the harmony activity is run but ST is not good at flipping the switch on harmony activities when they are not activities via ST…

I know there are a lot of really bright people on here and I’m hoping someone has an idea I haven’t thought of. I do not know how to code or anything like that and am somewhat new to smart home tech overall although I have several devices.

You need to add the Activity that populates in ST back into the Activity in Harmony. Doing so will give you instant updates in the ST App when triggering an Activity in the Harmony App.

Goto setup in Harmony App and add devices and select SmartThings. Now authorize the Harmony Activities that show up in ST.

Add those switches as an additional step in the Harmony Activity for both on and off (home devices I believe).

So your “Watch TV” Activity will look something like this:

Turn on TV
Turn on AVR
Select Inputs
Turn on “Watch TV”

That last step flips on the Switch in ST for instant updates.

Now you can use the “clunky” work around to turn on the led lights without the delay.

Thank you for your response, I had explored that option as well and it did not seem possible to me to add a virtual switch to harmony. I have ST added to harmony and it appears to only import lights not virtual switches, there doesn’t appear to be, at least an obvious way, to do so.
When going to add devices you just have the ability to add other popular services like August, lifx, hue, etc.

If you followed the instructions to add Harmony to ST and the Harmony Activities are populating in ST, then you should see a ST Icon when you go to add devices in the Harmony App.

It should be where your other devices are listed. Not in Home Control. When you click the ST icon and select the correct location, all of your ST devices should populate. From there you select which devices Harmony can control. The Harmony Switches should be listed as well as ALL your ST devices.

If you are here, you are in the wrong place.

Thank you, this worked. The reason i was having an issue before was because I forgot you need to reconnect smart things to harmony and check the items you want to import…duh.

So I have the lights coming on with the activity, and going off with the activity now. Now if I want them to only come on between sunset-sunrise how would I do that with this current setup since they are forced to come on through harmony?

My idea right now is to use IFTTT and just shut them back off again if the criteria isn’t met, the only downside is to this is the lights may still momentarily come on, not a huge deal, but not ideal.

In the ST App:
You can use the Alexa Virtual Switch that doubles as a Contact Sensor that can trigger Routines in the Alexa App. (link below)

Use webCoRE to create the appropriate rule.

If Harmony Activity changes to on
And
Time is between x and y
Then with Virtual Switch
Turn on

If Harmony Activity changes to off
Then with Virtual Switch
Turn off

In the Alexa App:
If Contact Sensor (this is the Virtual Switch that shows up as a Contact Sensor) opens
Then turn on LED strip

If Contact Sensor closes
Then turn off LED strip