Smart things, hue, harmony

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
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Harmony doesnt seem to play with hue well especially for hue scenes.

Anyone have better luck with smart things? If so can i control hue with smart things through hue for a better experience? Especially for scenes?

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Hue scenes are not available through the smartthings/Hue integration. :disappointed_relieved:

The only easy reliable way I know to do it is by using IFTTT as an intermediary, because it will expose hue scenes as actions. So you can have turning on a virtual Switch in smartthings be the IF, and the hue scene be that.

Hue scenes are also available through Alexa, but the ST/Alexa method for routines has been glitchy since they introduced the second generation of the smartthings skill. It will work fine for a while, and then it will just stop working for a few days or even a few weeks. So I am hesitant to recommend that method anymore. :thinking:

If you use HomeKit, the hue scenes are available there, but in that case you would have to use homebridge for the integration, and if you were using homebridge for the integration you probably wouldn’t be asking this question because you would’ve just tested it for yourself. And it’s way too complicated to set up just for this purpose.

IFTTT is free for up to three rules per account. Otherwise you have to pay a monthly fee, and I don’t know if that would be worth it to you or not. Or you have to set up a whole bunch of different free accounts, which gets tedious.

So those are the main options:

a) IFTTT: simple to set up, reliable, but requires a monthly fee if you have more than three rules

b) Alexa routines: free, a little more complicated to set up, but currently glitchy.

C) Homebridge: Very complicated to set up and only works if you are using Apple HomeKit.

There may be some other method using other intermediaries, hopefully someone will mention it if there is. You could probably do something with Tasker and sharptools, for example, but that could also get a little complicated.

But with just the basic smartthings features, unfortunately, hue scenes are not exposed to the integration. :disappointed_relieved:

Could you use smartthings scenes instead? Then it would be pretty easy. But I know they don’t have all the same features as hue scenes, for example, no blink and no fade.

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Actually i just set up home my homekit, somehow it slipped by me it was a thing. So ill check into that and get back about how complicated it is…if its too much ill continue as you recommended. 8)

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HomeKit works great with hue, but smartthings only works with HomeKit if you set up a separate server and then use a hue bridge emulator to fool Homekit into thinking your smartthings devices are hue devices attached to that bridge. So you can bring your smartthings devices into HomeKit but you can’t bring your other HomeKit devices back into smartthings. And it requires quite a bit of technical skill to set up.

Still, there are lots of people who do it. If you’d like to talk to them about the process, see the following thread:

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Thanks

I think i might have gotten ahead of myself a bit. Hope its not too off topic.

If homekit is set up with hue with scenes…. is there a way to get those scenes integrated with harmony remote activities?

Basically control the scenes through the remote but in a more friendlier way than how hue and harmony interact currently.

Could homekit be used to cheat that complication?