Hey guys. Some time ago someone had posted a round about way of activating my iris garage opener with voice. Does anyone have a link or anything?
I can’t remember if it was done with IFTTT or a virtual switch or both. Thanks for any help!
I use a telguard controller and Custom Device handler that treats the door as a switch that you turn on or off. By doing this I can have an Alexa routine that turns the garage door on (open) or turns it off (closed). You might look and see if there is a custom device handler for the iris you can use that doe something similar.
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I created a virtual switch and a rule to open and close the garage door when that virtual switch changes state. Next, the virtual switch is added to Alexa. I then created a routine in Alexa that when I say “Alexa, open the garage”, the virtual switch will be turned on. The Smartthings rule takes over and opens the garage. You can probably use WebCore to set up the rule in Smartthings.
I created another rule and routine to do the opposite when I want to close the garage.
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How would I set this up to work with a routine or scene? I’m not using webcore and would like to avoid it if possible. I just got a new Hub and everything just send to work better without all the custom stuff.
I believe due to security reasons, Amazon does not allow direct commands via Alexa to open or close a garage door. What I mentioned is a work around so there is no real simple way to do it as you described.
Sorry that’s not what I meant. I’ve created the virtual switch in ST and it’s called Virtual Garage Door Open.
But how do I tie it back to the garage door. Or whatever I need to tie it to in ST?
That is where you create a rule in WebCore or maybe the built in SmartLights app might work. Are you using the Classic or new app? I’m sorry but I can’t help in the new app since I haven’t used it at all.
In Alexa app under the hamburger menu, there is an option for Routines where you can create an Alexa “rule” that when you say “Alexa, open the garage” it will turn on your virtual switch.
I figured it out! After creating the virtual switch I created a routine to open garage that activates when the virtual switch is opened.
In Google home I created a routine that activates the virtual switch.
Just tested and it worked!
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@Jimxenus thanks for your help man. That was way easier than I thought it would be.
Over more question. Currently I have to series virtual switches. One for open one for close. Do I need separate switches or can I assign one action to the VS open and one to the VS close?
In my setup, I only used one virtual switch, when it gets turned on by the Alexa routine, it will trigger SmartThings to open the garage. When it gets turned off by the Alexa routine “Close the garage door”, a SmartThings rule will close the garage.
Ok cool. I may go back and clean that up at some point. I’m just excited to have it working. Thanks again for the guidance.