Run SmartThings routine when Harmony pause button pressed

Devices & Integrations
1

I would like for the Hue lights to turn on when I press pause on my Harmony Elite. From the reading I’ve done I can execute routines from a Harmony activity <-> ST virtual switch, but I think what I’m after is a different situation. Thanks for any thoughts.

2

Hmmm, this is a tall order & unfortunately I can only think of one possible method & not even sure if would work. You would need to go in the harmony app & choose to customize the pause button in the activity(s) you wish to have it happen. Select sequence option (their version of a macro?) & program the pause then the smartthings activity that you already have added to harmony. I’m not sure if you can add home controls to a sequence but it’s worth a try. You will need to also do similar to the play(unpause) if you want the ST action to revert.

Harmony can/does report which activity & on/Off said activity, but I do not believe there is any reporting for pause/stop.

I also double checked my harmony IFTTT channel & it cannot be used as a trigger, only as an activity & only options are start/end a harmony activity. So that option would only be the other way around AND not available for pause action.

Let me know if my suggestion works. I have a bad feeling it may not because I know I cannot map home control actions to remote buttons OTHER THAN the 4 dedicated HA buttons. But MAYBE a sequence is a way around that limitation.

3

I’d be interested in this if you figure something out.

4

There’s no way to do this because harmony expects you to do everything through an activity. If they don’t make a button available for mapping, there’s nothing you can add to it.

You could create an activity that would do both pause and lowering your lights, but then you have to select it from your activity list, you can’t just use the pause button.

5

Thanks JD. The Paused Activity might not be too bad since it would display right on my new remotes screen (Might have to play with the name to get it to show at the top of the list).

Another option that I think would be just as easy would be to us voice control with Echo to turn on dimmed lights. I imagine it would be pretty easy to say some like “Alexia, Pause Show” as I hit the pause button on the remote. The remote does the AV stuff and Echo does the lights. I don’t have Echo, so I have no clue what the phrase would have to actually be.

6

Virtual switch is still good option. If you add SmartThings to Harmony as a Home control system, you could then create a virtual switch to set the routine or using something Like CoRE to set the Hue’s Activity. Then you could add that to the Harmony Activity. The other option is to create the same virtual switch and use the Echo’s Grouping tool to combine the Harmony Activity with the SmartThings virtual switch. One command for two actions.

The other option using the Echo’s Grouping option to run the Harmony Activity and if you Hue is integrated with Alexa, then set the lighting level.

7

@DarcRanger
I’m a bit lost with the ST virtual switch, ST routine, and Harmony Activity. Could you give me a brief overview?
My plan:

  1. Harmony Activity: create new “pause” activity. On startup: executes dvd player “pause” and turns on virtual switch. On activity shutdown: dvd player pause and turn of virtual switch (however, it also wants to turn off dvd player)
  2. ST SmartApp “switch activates home phrase(routine)”: when virtual switch is turned on, then my “pause movie” routine will run
  3. “pause movie” routine turns on the Hue lights

I have something backwards. Thanks for any help.

8

I you are using the Hue lighting with its hub, then Harmony can could and that hub to control the lighting. This would bypass ST.

The ST virtual switch could control the Hue lights via a smart app like CoRE or by creating a routing to set the lights and levels.

I should add that devices from ST added to Harmony Activities will only run after the primary Harmony Actions.

If “Pause Movie”, will only be used when the DVD player is on? If you have discrete power command of On/Off/Toggle, then you could add the DVD player with the On command.
Of you could replicate the Start DVD Activity and add the ST switch. This would work the same way the TV stays on between TV related activities.