I need some help setting up my Harmony Hub with Google Home & Alexa. I got a new Harmony Smart Control hub(915-000194) few days back. I have been spending lot of time to make it work but still not there yet.
I have created Activities like Watch TV, Watch Roku, Watch a Movie and Netflix.
You will see two skills there, a red and an aqua icon one. You will definitely want to download the skill with the red icon (itrequires you to to say 'Alexa, tell harmony to…")
Once you enable the skill and follow the prompts, you will then need to discover devices with Alexa. After that, you should be all set.
In regards to there being two skills and you picking the red skill over the aqua skill…
When the integration first launched (the aqua skill), it could only turn on/off activities. You weren’t able to control any device commands, such as volume and playback controls. Recently, they got this to work, but had to create a different skill to do so. My guess is the original skill treated each activity as a switch, rather than actual commands.
I decided to run the red skill that requires saying 'Alexa, tell harmony to…" because then all the of the wake commands for harmony control are the same. I didn’t want to have to think about using “Alexa, turn on” for activities and “Alexa, tell harmony to” for device control. It’s much simpler sticking to one wake phrase for everything Harmony.
Thanks @Jnick I did not do the step to discovery my Harmony device. Once i did that I was able to do the voice control of my activity. so Alexa works now. Thanks for your help.
Does anyone know how to create an Netflix activity in Harmony to open the samsung smart tv’s Netflix app ? I would like to create a Netflix and Youtube activity to open these apps directly from samsung tv.
Does it have a direct button on your remote for those items? If not then I think you’ll have to figure out a routine to simulate you pressing the remotes buttons to navigate through the menu.
Just me shot gunning. I do know my Vizio tv has a button on the remote so wasn’t hard to do.
I finally managed to make the google home work correctly with my Harmony hub. Somehow the IFTTT applets i created using my iphone did not work correctly. I tried using my browser, logged-in to IFTTT, then authorized Harmony, created new Applet to call the Harmony Activity and worked perfectly without any glitch.
Example:
Step 1:
In Harmony create a “Watch a Movie” Activity to turn on my samsung tv, samsung soundbar, blu-ray player, dim the lights, change the color of Hue bulbs/strip to Red & green.
Step 2:
In IFTTT Create a new Applet for “IF” with Simple Phrase “Turn on Movie night” and then Trigger “THEN” to call Harmony Activity “Watch a Movie” . Save the applet.
Step 3"
Use Google Home to say “OK google Turn on Movie night” .
It works without any glitch.
Now I’m trying to explore, how to open a Netflix App or Youtube App using samsung tv’s apps.