Harmony Home Control

Devices & Integrations
464

Yes, me as well beta is working correctly again. There were some issues with harmony over the past few days that @thegibertchan has worked out.

465

Does anyone know if there are any similar limitations for interacting with door locks from the SmartThings integration like with the Harmony > IFTTT integration? I’ve got a Harmony activity setup to lock my August smart lock and it works fine when triggering it from the Harmony app or the remote control, but it will not work when trying to trigger it with a virtual switch from SmartThings.

466

Yeah I discovered this one to. I think it’s a limitation (security restriction) by Harmony not allowing external services controlling door locks. So any activity with a lock in it cannot be triggered by anything outside of Harmony like ST or IFTTT. As soon as you remove the lock from the activity it will trigger. Thats the conclusion I can to. I tried to create a virtual lock and then have ST trigger the activity when the virtual lock was set to lock and unlock etc. but I learned it wouldn’t work do to the limitation i described so I gave up. Was trying a work around to get ST know the state of the august and act like a controllable door in my dashboard.

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467

It will work with a virtual switch approach, but you have to use two virtual switches so that Harmony doesn’t know that a lock is involved.

So you one virtual switch to trigger the IFTTT recipe

That recipe has a harmony activity as its “that.”

Instead of including a lock in the harmony activity, include a different virtual switch that triggers a SmartThings routine. Have that routine unlock the lock.

If you do it that way, you can include locks in your IFTTT harmony recipes. But only because harmony doesn’t know it’s a lock, and thinks it’s a switch. It’s up to smartthings to actually do the lock.

edited to add: sorry, just noticed that your lock is an August lock which is not integratable at the present time with SmartThings. So it probably won’t work with this method, but locks which are controllable from smartthings, will. I’m leaving my post up because it might be useful for people with other kinds of locks. But I’m sorry I missed your brand on the first read.

468

I sort of went down this route but used a virtual lock that controlled a virtual switch (instead of a lock) that then trigger harmony to call the lock activity that had the actual lock, instead of another virtual switch that triggers a routine. So many virtual devices to make this work. I still don’t think this will work though since ST can’t actually control the August Lock yet?

So if harmony calls the activity to trigger a virtual switch on in ST, something has to go back to Harmony to actually activate the lock, which at this point can’t be done out side of the harmony app. Or am i missing something?

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469

Right, I had just updated my post to reflect the August issue. my bad.

470

Thanks guys. Once I found the new location for Harmony control, I was back up and running again.

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471

I ran into a similar problem with the Amazon Echo. I wrote this simple SmartApp to help. Create a new device in the IDE of type “On/Off Button Tile”, then install the app, selecting the virtual button and the lock device. Switch on/off commands sent to the button will lock/unlock the selected lock. Locking or unlocking the physical lock will also update the switch device.

472

Any chance of getting access to my Harmony Hubs via ST? After migrating from v1 to v2, I can’t get the Connect app in the Marketplace to work.

473

This won’t work for Harmony as what I’m trying to achieve is use ST to control an August Lock via Harmony. ST does not know the lock exists, so I used a virtual lock, virtual switch, smartrules smart and trigger smartapp. So what I attempted was this:

In Harmony

  1. Connected August lock via August Connect
  2. Create Activity called “Lock Door”
  3. Create Activity called “UnLock Door”

In ST

  1. Create a Virtual Lock in ST
  2. Create a Virtual Switch in ST
  3. Used smart rules to create two rules
    a) When virtual lock is locked turn on virtual switch
    b) When virtual lock is unlocked turn off virtual switch
  4. Install Logitech Harmony (Connect)
  5. Install two Logitech Harmony Triggers
    a) When Virtual Switch is on trigger harmony activity "Lock Door"
    b) When Virtual Switch is off trigger harmony activity “UnLock Door”

So all the pieces were there but then I would get an error in the IDE logs when ST tried to trigger the activity. This also happens if I tried to use ST IFTTT integration to call the Harmony IFTTT channel with these activities. I then did a test where I changed the Harmony Activities (in Harmony app not ST) “Lock Door” and “UnLock Door” to turn on an off a light and removed the lock from the activities, and it worked. So this leads me to believe that Harmony has a security feature that doesn’t not allow an activity that has a lock included in it to bed called by external API’s

In the end I had a Door called “Front Door” in ST that when I locked and unlocked via the app or hello home, would turn my front light on and off haha.

474

I am trying to get ST to trigger an activity to the Harmony Hub, but currently, I can only end an activity.

I have an activity caller Start Theatre. It lowers a screen, starts the sound system, bluray, selects proper HDMI input etc. This is all from the harmony remote and works. From within ST, I can stop the activity which puts the screen up and powers everything off
 but no way for ST to start the activity. I would ideally set ST to trigger ‘movie mode’ which would handle the house settings and initialize the ‘Start Theatre’ activity on the harmony hub. Right now it works for shutting everything down, but cannot start it. Anyone else see this?

476

How are you stopping the activity from ST?
I’ll assume the following:

  1. You are able to install the “Logitech Harmony (Connect)” device type
  2. You can install the “Logitech Harmony Trigger” smartapp and it see the hub and all the activities you have created on the Harmony Side.

What I would do is the following:

  1. Create a virtual momentary switch called “Start Theatre Switch”
  2. Install an instance of the “Logitech Harmony Triggers” smartapp and set it to start the Harmony “Start Theatre” activity when the ST “Start Theatre Switch” is on
  3. Add the “Start Theatre Switch” to turn on in the routine you have in ST called “Movie Mode”
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477

Actually, I was missing the ‘Harmony Trigger’. Under the Connect device (called Theatre for me), there was a tile to ‘stop action’. I think that was the piece I was missing, thanks!

Update: Took me all of 5 minutes, I made the button and added it to my routine and it works perfect. Thanks again.

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478

Glad you got it to work :slight_smile:

479

I get “connection to the hub has timed out” error when I install the connect app. I’m now on V2 hub. I have restarted everything even router.

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480

Me too. I can’t get it to connect.

481

I’ve seen this before when the Harmony Hub needed a power cycle or a new firmware. Can you try that?

482

Same here on my iOS 2 app. @thegibertchan

483

This is still in beta right?

484

I hope so, @ashutosh1982! :slight_smile: An official integration would get the community super excited
 So, guess its still the beta or the old harmony connect app still? I was never on the harmony beta.