Harmony Echo ST Integration

So Frustrated.

Bought my Echo first, then the Harmony Hub. Set up a series of Harmony activities. Each one requires the device to ‘power on’ when initiated.

Recently got a ST Hub. Believe that everything is now in conflict. Echo connected to ST and Harmony. How can I setup ST to run activities in lieu of the Harmony so that I don’t have activities in conflict?

Echo gets confused, sees the devices in both apps and says that there are multiple devices with the same name.

One way to achieve this is to add the device a second time, but on this 2nd device set it to have no power buttons … then add this 2nd device to your activity rather then the original device. As it is set to have no power buttons it will not attempt to control the power, but all the device’s buttons will be available for assignment in the activity.

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-Remotes-Programming/Use-device-in-activity-without-power-on/td-p/341068

You may want to consider removing the Echo integration with Harmony and instead using Echo to trigger Harmony activities via ST. I setup activities for each sequence of actions which will present in ST as a switch. Echo recognizes this switch and can activate via voice commands. Correspondingly, I have SmartApps that trigger on states of the Harmony activities switches so that dependencies trigger regardless of whether i launch the activity via the Harmony remote or via ST or through Echo. This approach has been working well for me and does keep SmartThings in sync to device states.

Echo -> ST <-> Harmony

Here are a couple examples of potential workflow order:

Triggered by Echo:

  • “Alexa, Turn on TV” (Echo/Alexa -> ST)
  • Harmony Activity “TV” On (ST -> Harmony)
  • Projector On, Input Set, Receiver On, Input Set (Harmony -> Projector/Receiver)
  • Living Room Lights Off (ST -> HUE)
  • Ambient Lights 10% (ST -> HUE)
  • Living Room shades closed (ST -> IFTTT -> Lutron)

Triggered by Harmony:

  • Activity Selected on Harmony Remote
  • Projector On, Input Set, Receiver On, Input Set (Harmony -> Projector/Receiver)
  • Harmony Activity “TV” On Notification (Harmony -> ST)
  • Living Room Lights Off (ST -> HUE)
  • Ambient Lights 10% (ST -> HUE)
  • Living Room shades closed (ST -> IFTTT -> Lutron)

Triggered by SmartThings:

  • Activity switch turned on in ST
  • Harmony Activity “TV” On (ST -> Harmony)
  • Projector On, Input Set, Receiver On, Input Set (Harmony -> Projector/Receiver)
  • Living Room Lights Off (ST -> HUE)
  • Ambient Lights 10% (ST -> HUE)
  • Living Room shades closed (ST -> IFTTT -> Lutron)
2 Likes

I ran into the same(ish) issue with Hue lights, Echo and ST. Echo was seeing 2 of everything one as a Hue light and then again as ST Hue light. I just deleted the ST instance from Echo connect and just let Alexa see them only through Harmony directly.

Thanks!

Trying to find additional creative solutions as there is a max on the hub of 8.

Interestingly - I decided to take a different approach as I kept having to discover and forget devices.

I renamed my devices to something I would typically not use as an Alexa trigger. I then created groups with the name I wanted and put the devices in the group. This way, Alexa does not care if there are duplicates, she runs the command on all devices in the group.

Worked like a charm!

Hi, I am a bit of a novice but have had general success using echo, ST and harmony. However in order to use echo to issue harmony commands, I have had to use yonomi of IFTTT. I would like to use the echo to ST to Harmony method. I see the harmony activities in ST, i have added them to the ST Alexa app and on Alexa App, I see the harmony apps via ST but I cannot figure out how to activate them by voice. What am I missing>
Thanks for your help

The following is the thread for the echo/harmony/ST official integration. It should help.

Thank you!!

First, ensure that the Alexa smart app has access to the activities. They behave like switches. Then tell the echo: “Alexa, discover devices”. After Alexa discovers the new switches, you should be able to request them on and off by name. For example, “Alexa, turn on TV”. Provided that the activity is named TV. Hope that helps.