BigTalker not working with Harmony Activities called from Smartthings? (Is this by design/ or limitation?)

Hello all,

Hope someone here could give me a quick response on this one.

I have a few ir devices (that I have placed in their own individual harmony activity) in the house that I control with the Harmony Hub ir blasters. So in the big talker smart app, I went ahead and added these activities. However, I notice that when I tell Alexa to turn on the “Floor Fan” etc., the follow up of “OK” happens but not the remainder that big talker helps out with, the “Floor Fan is ON”.

Could someone help shed some light on what is going on with my setup.

BigTalker works appropriately with all of my zwave devices (GE switches, linear garage door opener). Thank you all for your help!!!

Your best bet would be to ask the question in the author’s thread for big talker. The author will be automatically notified when a new post appears there, and other people using the code may also be able to answer.

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@JDRoberts, Thank you for that advice. I actually linked my created thread to the authors thread earlier today sometime. Thank you again for giving me a hand.

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Just wanted to reply here and say I believe it is now working with the harmony activitities. However there is a pretty big delay before the announcement is made (20 or so seconds). There is a very small announcement delay with all of the other zwave devices on my smartthings network with announcements with VLC things utilizing alexa (just a few seconds, 2-3).

Would anyone have any suggestions for me with my setup for this delay with my harmony activities? (Very little delay with my zwave devices)

I’m thinking there is no possible fix since this communication I assume is having to go through multiple servers. Harmonies and then smartthings.

I’m up for any comments though.

I think you are spot on with this.
I’m not that familiar with the harmony stuff, but if its going out to the Internet for processing then being sent to Smartthings as a command, then being sent from Smartthings back out to their servers to convert text to speech and finally ordering your VLC device to go grab the mp3 of the speech and play it there are a lot of factors that come into play (including the speed and stability of your own Internet connection). The processing time of each of these services comes into play as well.

(responded in the BigTalker thread, but also cross posting here)

@rayzurbock, would you have any ideas for me on what I am running into below?

  • It seems like there are instances where the first part of the announcement is cut off- not 100% of the time, I would say something like 30% of the time. I don’t really know Where/ how I would troubleshooting on this one.

I am using a windows pc connected to an amazon echo.

Usually cut-offs are due to back to back notifications. Door open immediately followed by door closed, etc. The workaround for this is to only announce one of the events, open or closed for the same device but not both.