@MichaelS Thank you for this. I am new to ST but enjoying it very much. I have followed your directions but not getting the results I was expecting. It may be misunderstanding on my end. Here’s my situation.
I have Govee Home LED TV light. It is connected to my Alexa account as Great Room TV Lights. It is a wifi/bluetooth device and I have to power it on and off when I want to use it. It does not talk to ST but does talk to Alexa. I was hoping I could create a WebCore Piston (or something similar) that would tell my Great Room TV Lights to turn on/off when my Logitech Harmony activity turns on/off. I was under the impression that your app/device handlers would read my Alexa devices and put them into ST as a Virtual Device. I have tried, but can’t seem to get that to happen. Am I misunderstanding how your app works? If so, do you know how I would be able to do what I’m trying to do? Thanks so much.
Thanks for the comments. I do believe there is some misunderstanding on how the app works. Basically, from a technical perspective, you may be thinking of this backwards; The devices are ‘virtual’ items that exist in SmartThings and allows for Alexa to control them. Not Alexa devices that could then be seen by SmartThings (although, that would be cool).
In your case with the Govee Light, you might be able to do this: I assume your Harmony is seen by SmartThings? If so, you could use a virtual motion sensor to activate when the Harmony is turned on. Then, have that trigger a routine within Alexa to activate the light. Pretty straight forward, and is a good use for the Virtual Device creator.
Thank you so much. This should work. I am new to this and have never done a WebCore piston yet. I have done SmartLights and Automations thru SmartThings app. My Harmony Hub can be seen by my SmartThings. I am trying like crazy to get my Motion Sensor to turn on when I turn on Harmony but I’m just not seeing that anywhere in the SmartLights and Automations in the new ST app. Is there something I’m missing? If it’s not possible there, I will try WebCore. Thanks again.
You can’t turn on traditional motion sensors programmically. Only virtual ones are controllable via Webcore. Have a look at the documentation for the virtual motion sensor as I think I documented how to activate it…I do this on my config for triggering a failsafe for a morning alarm.
This is my first WebCore piston. Do I have this setup correctly? I cannot get it to activate. I know I have the Amazon Alexa Routine correct because I run it and it turns the lights on. I can not seem to get the motion sensor to work. I’m hoping my code is incorrect. Thanks
I just looked at my piston and you are using the correct syntax. Remember you can only activate virtual motion sensors. And, you have to reset it to inactive at some point as Alexa’s routine will only see the state change between inactive and active.
I have read your documentation, that is how I installed the smart app and DTHs. I believe it is all setup correctly, I’m still not seeing where my problem is. When you get to your PC, please look at my coding. I’m hoping that’s the problem. Thanks so much.
Just did…see above. Could the virtual device already show active? You will need to make it inactive at some point. Also you can use the dashboard in Webcore to see if the actions are registering. If it can’t see the switch change it won’t activate the sensor.
I have added this a “inactive” by using change my switch to “off” then in goes to “inactive”.
I cannot get it to work still. I have decided to start from scratch. I removed my virtual motion detector, removed your App from SmartApps and removed the virtual device from Alexa as well as the piston and routine. I then added it all back to see if that would fix it. I am still unable to get it to work. If I play the routine on Alexa, it works great. I can even go to the virtual motion detector in ST Classic and turn it on/off, but when I do, it does not push thru to Alexa to do anything? I have been working on this for at least 4 hours…I’m exhausted and a bit tapped out. Any suggestions?
There are a lot of moving parts here… However, you typically you do not need to remove programs from SmartThings as the interaction of apps is not like a computer.
Anyway, it is good you started from scratch. You need to work within the IDE to watch the log and also on a PC to watch the Webcore dashboard.
First, you need to get either Webcore to work or all of this is for not…can you do a simple process like have your first switch activate another switch? If that doesn’t work then you need to focus on Webcore to ensure that is working. No fancy virtual switches or sensors…just a “if switch A goes on turn on switch B” script.
I am traveling for the day so I can look at this further tomorrow. But if the above works step 2 will be to get it to activate a sensor.
I will be gone until New Year (anniversary) so here’s my last attempt before then. I have verified webcore works. I went to my bedroom and told webcore to Turn off my “fireplace light” when I turn my “bedroom harmony watch fire tv” on and turn the “fireplace light” on when I turn the “bedroom harmony watch fire tv” off. It works as it should. I went back to my “Great Room” setup and verified conditions were similar to bedroom to allow the sensor to detect motion and stop detecting motion. When I hit the “Great Room Watch Fire TV” button, it sets the “Great Room TV Light Vitual Sensor” to active state. I can go to Alexa and it shows “Active”. I have a routine I created in Alexa.
Routine:
When Great Room TV Lights Virtual Motion Sensor detects motion
Anytime
Alexa Will
Great Room TV Lights
Power: On
I have the exact same setup for turning off the lights, but neither work. If I run the routine directly from Alexa it turns the lights on and off. It seems that there’s a disconnect from Alexa reading the sensor as motion detected?
So, if I understand, everything is working properly in SmartThings? It sounds like the detection within Alexa is not working? Remember, Alexa works on a state change; in other words it has to read ‘inactive’ and then go to active to work. Being active and sending it an active command doesn’t change the state. I assume you are doing that, but that is a common mistake.
If you watch the devices in Alexa can you see it toggle active and inactive?
I do know that Alexa is not always polling the devices, but if you see the state change (no matter how long it takes) it should work.
Let me know if you have checked all of this…now that I am not in transit I can look into this a bit more.
All is well with the world! I troubleshooted it down to Amazon’s side. I had to disable “SmartThings” skill from Amazon and then add it back. When I did that, all was fixed! YAY!!!
Hello,
I just start working with Smartthings and now did discover the Alexa Virtual Device Creator. I already installed the AVDC and created my first switches with success.
As I want to use the created VDs to switch my window blinds I miss “stop-button” function in the virtual switch. I think (didn’t try yet) I could use a second VD of “Momentary Button Tile” type, but that means to have two different VDs for each window blind switch.
So would it make sense to add such button to the virtual switch or create a fourth device which has up, down and stop functions?
Just stumbled on your project. First let me say thank you for putting this together.
I am having a bit of an issue I was hoping you could help.
I have the app installed.
I have a virtual switch setup for a set of Govee lights which only have Wifi.
I am not able to use the virtual switch in Smartthings to control the light strip.
I did a discovery on Alexa and the Alexa Virtual Switch showed up as a new device.
I just want to be able to turn the lights on and off based on a routine I already have setup. Any of the color management I can do through Alexa when I am here.
I am sure I missed something. Do you know what it is?
