Harmony Ultimate Home and Z-Wave Duplex Outlet?

SmartApps & Automations Automation Ideas
,
1

I am wanting to consolidate two remotes (Harmony and Aeon Minimote) needed to control my TV projection entertainment system.

Currently: I have an older ceiling mounted TV projector that needs to get powered on before any IR commands to control it are sent. The TV projector will not accept any IR commands unless it is physically powered on. The TV projector cannot be left “powered on” since it makes noise and would eventually wear out the cooling fan left in low power mode.

Once IR commands are sent to the powered ON projector, it goes into high power mode and generates a TV picture to the screen. I have a Aeon Minimote configured to power on and off the TV projector using a Z-Wave duplex outlet. The other entertainment devices (and the powered on TV projector) are controlled nicely by the Harmony Ultimate Home remote.

Desired State: I wish to have my Harmony Ultimate Home Remote control the SmartThings Z-Wave outlet and eliminate the Minimote step. When I configured this desired state in the Harmony App with SmartThings Home Control integration, the SmartThings Z-Wave outlet gets listed LAST in the device list and powered on LAST, and hence does not get the IR commands sent to it. The Z-Wave outlet needs to be listed FIRST and powered on with a slight delay before the Harmony sends it IR commands.

So my questions to the ST community:

  1. Can I consolidate the Z-Wave power ON step within one Harmony Entertainment Activity and eliminate the need for the separate Minimote power ON step?
  2. Can I define a Core Piston to monitor the Z-Wave power meter of the outlet to power off the TV projector after the energy usage drops from ~110 watts (Full On) to 5-10 watts (Low power mode), and if so, would you help list the steps with the Core Piston definition?
2

You should ask your question in the core peer assistance thread. That’s where the core experts hang out, and they would be glad to help you design a piston for this. :sunglasses:

It should definitely be doable with core and the other ways to do it are kind of hacky, so I’d suggest you just go with the core idea.

3

Thanks @JDRoberts, I will ask question #2 there, any ideas on question #1?

4

If you use core you’ll be able to consolidate everything, but you won’t do it with in one harmony activity because of the sequencing issue you noted where a home automation devices always executed last.

Most likely they’ll set it up so that you’ll have the Z wave device come on, wait briefly, then execute the harmony activity, but there are multiple ways to do it. The folks in the peer advisory thread can suggest the best way.