ashutosh1982:
I was interested to know how are you guys setting up a virtual switch to control an activity. For example, i can set up a virtual switch to turn an activity on and off. Thats the easy part. But what if I use the harmony remote to start activity and then want to use virtual switch to turn it off. One way would be to update the virtual switch status within harmony activity as well… But what I’ve found is that sometimes Harmony goes crazy it goes into a never ending loop of starting and ending the activity. Has anyone observed this? Any solution to make rhis work reliably?
That will loop if it’s a binary switch.
Instead, use two momentary switches. One for activity on, one for activity off. That way each switch is always ready to use the next time, and no loops. Much discussed in the echo and harmony topics.
Same switch selection protocol applies no matter how you’re getting to the harmony activity.
Updated 12 November 2015 after Amazon added “Triggers” to their IFTTT Channel for Alexa
As valuable as I personally found this project, and as much as I learned in doing it, as of 12 November 2015 it’s now no longer necessary.
Amazon has added verbal triggers to their IFTTT channel. So you can say anything you want to as a trigger to Alexa and use that as the “if” for an IFTTT recipe, and have that trigger anything that has an IFTTT “that” channel. So SmartThings, Philips Hue, Harmony activities, etc. No virtual switches needed, no synch issues.
It really is that easy.