Music and colored lighting? (Party scene)

My wife is asking me to figure out a way to create a “party”. Basically, she wants to be able to say, “Alexa, party in the living room” and then music plays and the colored lights go into action. Has anyone had any success with this type of action. I know there is a trigger party skill in alexa that will start a color loop, but I’m not sure there is a way to get music going at the same time. The current equipment I have is Smartthings hub, Alexa, Echosistant, IFTTT, Philips Hue bulbs (and hub), and Jam Wifi speakers (configured to my smartthings hub via media renderer). As always, thanks in advance for the input.

Here you go :slight_smile: not tried it myself, but :slight_smile: yeah there’s something

edit: I appologise for posting whata is potentially the worst review in youtube history…

I actually have the hue disco app which would work great. However, my goal was to say “alexa, party in the living room(or something similar)” then have the music and lights go to work at the same time. By the way, no worries about the review…it’s the thought that counts. lol

if you want alexa to do disco lights, the app would have to have an alexa skill as alexa is a form of input, which would need to know where to go to… and so I provide you with my second link of the day:

actually this is for google assistant on android so not quite - there’s a ifttt command for google home, you could probably repurpose

ill look into it…thanks alot

It can be done by

Having Alexa start a SmartThings routine
Then having sharptools start Tasker on an android device and
Then having Tasker run the hue disco app.

Alternatively, you have to figure out how to start the music from SmartThings and then you can start a color loop with IFTTT.

For example, Some people just do this with Harmony if they have music channels available through their home theater.

So the first step is to figure out where the music will come from. If you have a straightforward way to do that from SmartThings, it’s easy to layer in hue lights.

@cchilds1976

I got this working using HueManic and Macronos along with Tasker and Autoremote. But with smarthings you can use Sharptools to do the trigger in tasker instead of autoremote like I do currently. I switched away from hue disco as huemanic has better intents to start the party mode seamlessly.

The tablets running Imperihome do the announcement saying let’s party etc… But you could have macronos play a soundfile first saying the same.

Just name your virtual switch something like party in the living room. I have one for each room in the house along with a party mode everywhere which turns on the party lights in all rooms and groups all the sonos together.

If you need me to share an example of my tasker routine let me know and I will get stone screenshots from my tablets tonight

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I would love to get your help on this one. I just downloaded tasker, Huemani, and sharptools. Thats how far I am on this project so far.

@cchilds1976

ok so you need to create a Tasker Profile that uses the Sharptools plugin and you select a virtual switch when it turns on. I wont cover that here as i dont have that in my profile. but then you create a task for the profile called for example Start Disco here is mine.

so Step 2 - 4 are self explanatory so i wont cover them but Step 1 starts the disco lights. My Tablet in each room has humanic setup with the correct bulbs etc… for the room and i tested this manually starting and stopping the disco lights.

now Step one you need to send an intent. you get this from the System category in Tasker when adding an action. you then put in the following entries into the first Extra values as shown

the Package/Class and Target Values are as shown

now you also need an profile that stops the disco lights and music when the Virtual Switch is turned off, the task is almost identical as shown

but this time the intent has all the same settings as before except the 2 Extra Fields have been replaced with the following single Extra Field

this also works for the other modes in HueManic, for example to start the Fireplace effect, change the Second Extra Field from EXTRA_PROGRAM:DISCO and replace it with EXTRA_PROGRAM:FIREPLACE

the rest should be self explanatory. sorry for the crappy pics, but hopefully should get you up and running.

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thanks for the detailed information. quick question before I get started…does it have to be sonos speakers because I have jam symphony wifi speakers connected to my smartthings. Also, on step 2 how did you get Macronos Macro in there? Nevermind, I figured out steps 2 and 4. Actually, on second thought, I may need help with step 2. I see how to get to where I select Macros and Command, but I’m not exactly sure how to configure it. The MUSIC button is greyed out. It says “no music selected”

Here’s an article on using the Thing State Tasker plugin from SharpTools that @Fuzzyligic was referring to:

The short version is:

  1. Long press on the thing you want to monitor in the main SharpTools UI and subscribe to the desired attribute (eg. Virtual Switch: switch)
  2. Create a new Tasker Profile > Event > Plugin > SharpTools > Thing State
    a. Make sure to fill in the filters with an appropriate value (at least the partial name of your Virtual Switch in the Thing field)
  3. Continue on with the rest of Stuart’s example…
    Note: if you only want to trigger certain actions when the switch is turned ON or OFF (rather than either), you’ll want to use a conditional action (eg. IF %st_attr_value ~ on)
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@cchilds1976 Macronos that i use only works with Sonos so step 2 is not going to work for you, but there is a multitude of ways to get this working. if for example you can already trigger music from Smartthings then you just need to trigger it using a combination of Smartthings and Sharptools its not something i can help you with directly as i dont have direct experience of your type of speaker. but maybe there is a DNLA Tasker plugin? presuming of course your speaker is a DNLA speaker?

alright. My speaker is a DLNA speaker

@cchilds1976 just had a quick google and it looks like the app below would work, it says it has Tasker integration and supports DNLA speakers. but i have not used it so cant comment on its reliability etc…

nice! one problem…it say says Root required. My device is not rooted

Well it looks like all the apps that can send music to a DNLA speaker need to be rooted, the one below is the same, can’t see another alternative. so doing it this way looks like it needs a rooted device. is rooting your device not an option?

unfortunately, I’m not that savvy when it comes to that so I cant root it myself. If I tried, I would probably shutdown the entire grid…lol. Thanks for trying though. I really appreciate it.

I recall there being a DLNA SmartApp in the community. I’m mobile at the moment, but it might be worth a quick search.

yes sir…you are correct as a matter fact I have it. Media Renderer. Now how to incorporate everything as far Tasker and the others apps is basically the problem due to lack of knowledge. I did try reading up on this stuff, but the integration of all the “moving parts” is the hard part for me.

I was able to get the Spotify playlist on my phone via Tasker. I have 2 more issues then I can move on the putting the music to coincide with my lighting to get my party in the living room going. First, I have a task setup to launch a Spotify playlist, however, I would like it to play on my speakers in smarrthings instead of my phone. Secondly, I would like to activate this task via my voice (alexa) instead of going thru my phone to make it start. That’s where I am right now.