Harmony Elite Hub Power Off button and SmartThings

Is there any way to make Harmony trigger a virtual switch/light/plug off when the Harmony remote main OFF button on remote (top left button) is pressed? I see how to tap into each Activity and detect whether it is on or off. But I want to be able to tap into this main Off button.

In the bigger picture - what I’m looking to do is trigger a certain set of SmartThing actions to occur when I shut my system down by pressing the power off button, such as turning on all the lights, adjusting the thermostat, and some other things. I am proficient with CoRE/webCoRE so I can make all the actions happen myself, which is my preference over using a smartApp. But in order to make my CoRE piston run, I have to hook in somehow to the Harmony so I can trigger my piston to run, such as when the OFF button is pressed.

How can this be done? Note that the solution must cause my special handling to run right away. Something that has a long delay like even 3-5 seconds is not a good solution.

Thanks!

A virtual switch is probably the easiest way, add it to your activities to turn on when anything is ran and then turn off when you shut everything down.

The short answer is no, because harmony does not expose individual buttons to its integration. Just activities.

There is a backdoor integration that should let you do it but it requires setting up an additional server as a “man in the middle” and isn’t simple.

Just to let you know, this is possible via the virtual switch idea from above. In each activity I have a startup sequence to turn on my virtual switch. Each off activity then turns the switch off. So when I press the master off button on the Harmony remote, the virtual switch turns off and I can do whatever I want with it.

No need to muck with the KuKu Harmony to just trigger on on/off commands.

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Yes, that is essentially what I did and its been working. However I just went to review those steps I followed months ago, and I cannot find in the Harmony setup where I turn the virtual switch on and off. I thought it was in the Activities where you select Activities->Activity Startup Commands and Activities->Activity Shutdown Commands, but in looking at those now I don’t see any steps related to my virtual switch, nor do I see any option to add these there.

Can you please remind me as to where exactly you enter the commends to turn on and off the virtual switch for the various activities? Thanks!

It’s under “Edit Start Sequence” then “Edit Home Control”