Google Home

I see, thanks. I’ll fool with it.

While I get this, I still don’t see it as ideal, because it isn’t just a matter of all lights in a group being set to on, or a level, or even a color. Until ST supports scenes (yeah… that’ll be the day), I will continue to use HAM Bridge to create and invoke scenes I want with specific levels, colors, and transition times within a group of lights. Then it is just a virtual switch to send a command to HAM Bridge.

Even with a 3000 sq ft two story, just about every lighting situation is handled with less than a dozen scenes, many of which transition slowly from one to the other (night to bedtime for instance). Some are additive, some subtractive, and some whole house… and are based on time/sensor input, others from voice commands or switch states, and still others based on a combination of both, and most are named based on time/activity (i.e. Evening Billiards, Cook Dinner, Movie Night, Midnight Snack, etc.)

Having to organize 40+ lights/switches by name or even groups seems tedious at best.

I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that, mostly for the reasons you cited. But then again I wasn’t claiming that the ability to have a device in more than one group at a time was an ideal solution to anything…only that having that ability is better than NOT having that ability, especially given the fact that neither platform directly supports a better solution to the problem I described. Also, speaking strictly for my own use case, of course, scenes are of limited extra value. I don’t have colored lights, nor any special combinations of states I need to invoke for my devices. It’s either on, off or a specific level for lights and fans (or Harmony Hub activities), either individually or in groups. Alexa’s grouping capabilities give me what I need in that regard without needing a HAM bridge or any other additional mechanism.

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I am glad that works for you, but I would assume that many, even without the color option, would want different levels on various lights, and that those respective levels would change throughout the day given the occupancy, activity, and ambient light available. Without scenes, each light with a different level requires another command be issued.

Then again… I may be the fringe case here (theater/lighting background). :sunglasses:

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No doubt, which is why both of my comments contained qualifiers like “for me” and “speaking strictly for my own use case”.

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Yeah, we have lighting scenes available through the Hue bridge, but have never used them. Except for a couple of notification cases, which is where one lightstrip changes color.

Other than that, on, off, and dim work fine for us. But not being able to call the same room by three different names is a dealbreaker for us.

Also we have an open plan house, which is great for the wheelchair, but means multiple “rooms” have a lighting impact on one chair or television. So we use a lot of subgroupings. My “all lights off” doesn’t really turn off all the lights in the house–it turns off all the lights that shine into my bedroom, which covers 4 rooms, but not the ones on my housemate’s side of the house. Also it intentionally doesn’t include one counter light in the kitchen, so we can leave that one on if desired.

As always, different things work for different people, and choice is good. :sunglasses:

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anyone else noticing that Google Home keeps giving errors controlling devices? just started happening about 10 minutes ago

Me too. She says, “I’m sorry, there was an error and I’m unable to control your home device.”

Not working for me either. Same issue.

just started working again…

Working again for me too

Can you set it so that you can choose a recipient? Also, are you using the Android SMS?

EDIT: Figured how to send it, no Android SMS needed. If you figured out recipient that would be cool.

YES, I noticed it keeps on failing to recogonize on bulb in a room…

Last couple of nights I have noticed this. Not sure if servers are overloaded or what’s going on. Seems to be during peek times when everyone is playing with/trying out their new GH. They better get that squared away quickly.

I think I figured this out. You will need 1 IFTTT receipe per person though. Start you IFTTT recipe with “Say a phrase with a text ingredient” For your phrase put something like “Send a text to dad saying $” replace dad with whomever you want. You can create one of these for each person you want to text. Yes I know it’s not using the contacts. Looks like you can use either the built in SMS or Android SMS and it will automatically put “text ingredient” in there. That’s your $ variable from above. Forgot to add then Dad above is just a word not an ingredient. So then in part two of the recipe for the phone number you have to type in the number of the person referenced in the first part.

@Jrfarrar Is there a way to use the “send me an SMS” action for two different phone numbers? It seems that you can only authorize one number. Of course the work around is to authorize the wife for one and then use the Android SMS for me, but I would rather have it clean and both go through the other way.

Yes, use Android SMS you can put whatever number you want in there. It’s sending it from the phone you linked to IFTTT for Android SMS which I’m assuming is yours. So you can send a text to any number.

@Jrfarrar That is what I went with. Thanks. Appreciate the tip. Now I hope the kids don’t flood my inbox :slight_smile:

I had originally thought about doing this but didn’t want to as I use Google Voice so my actual SMS phone number is meaningless to people. Then I realized that if you send via SMS in IFTTT that is also a random number and pretty meaningless too so not much different. Might give that a try. Another suggestion I read was to use email to sms gateway. That would work for my wife but since I am on GV don’t think it works for me.

I got mine yesterday and played with it a bit last night and a bit more this morning. She is easily confused. Ask her what 3/4 plus 7/8 is, for example. Also, many of the commands don’t work, or at least not well. For example, “OK Google, dim Jim’s light by 50%” confuses her. And if you put an apostrophe in the device nickname that seems to be a deal breaker.

But its a fun toy, at least for now. I’ll try it out over the next week and see if I find it useful. Target said I have 30 days to return it.