Trying to integrate SmartLife Smoke Sensors and SmartThings and Alexa

SmartApps & Automations Automation Ideas
1

Hi, I’ve been using SmartLife for a couple of years now and have lots of devices and automations.
I recently got an Alexa Echo Dot.
As you probably know, the list of devices that can act as Alexa routine triggers is pretty short.
For instance, my Tuya smoke alarms can’t trigger Alexa to loudly proclaim, “THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE”.
Alexa can call my SL scenes, but SL can’t call Alexa.

Several people have suggested that I try and utilize the Virtual Device support of SmartThings.
So I added a Virtual Switch to ST. It shows up as a trigger in Alexa…
But now I realize that the SL-ST linkage is kind of backward for what I want.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to get my SL automation that determines the house is on fire to toggle the ST virtual switch that will make the Alexa routine alert me.
Is there a way to link the ST virtual switch into SL so I can set it?
Or do I have to let the Tuya smoke detectors get sucked into ST and have the automation to set the Alexa trigger there?

Any thoughts or help or pointers appreciated!

(Of course if SL implemented Virtual devices…)
(And if Alexa thought that it made sense for sensors such as Smoke Detectors and Leak Detectors to be triggers…)

2

I’m not sure if you really need Alexa to inform you that the house is on fire when the smoke detectors go off. They are louder than a typical speaker.

Personally I’m waiting until I can buy this Matter/Thread smoke detector that should work with ST and without a cloud connection:

(If anyone knows where I can buy it, you’d make me happy.)

3

The following FAQ shows how to integrate SmartThings and Alexa. You can’t use just any virtual switch, but the FAQ will give you the details of how to get the right one:

FAQ: Can I trigger an Echo Action without Speaking to It?

So that should take care of the second half of the project.

I don’t know how you’re getting the SmartLife information over to SmartThings, but if that part is already working for you, then the information at the link above should be all you need.

If you need more help with the first step, let us know, and maybe someone can figure something out, although it tends to be pretty challenging because, as you’ve noted, the SmartThings/SmartLife integration tends to be one way with SmartThings telling Smart Life what to do, not the other way around.

4

I like Paul’s answer below much better than my original answer, because I had forgotten that Tuya recently added the ability to use their own Smart plugs as Alexa routine triggers. So the more complex integration methods I originally described are no longer needed.

I’ve deleted that original post.

@Paul_Oliver

5

One other possibility… If you add a Tuya “matter bridge” to your Tuya system and you have a SmartThings/Aeotec hub, you could use that to bring some (but not all) devices over to your SmartThings account. So then you could have the smoke detector going off turn on a Tuya Zigbee Smart plug which shows up as a matter over bridge plug in your SmartThings account and which you could use as a proxy for the sirens going off.

This is a very new method and so far tuya only offers a couple of these matter bridges, but it is a possibility. And it would also let you bring some of your other Tuya devices over to SmartThings if you wanted to. But only some devices at this time and only some features. Still, it’s an interesting new integration option for the ones that do work with it. :sunglasses:

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6

While your Tuya Smoke Detector might not show up as a trigger in Alexa most Tuya switches, plugs and bulbs do. The list of Tuya Alexa triggers is actually much better that SmartThings.

So you could add a cheap Tuya WiFi plug to your Tuya account and then create a Tuya automation to turn on the plug when smoke is detected. Then you can use that Tuya plug in Alexa to trigger an Alexa routine to say FIRE or whatever you want. This will NOT involve the use of SmartThings in any way.

You can create Virtual Devices in Tuya. The process is different and more difficult than creating a SmartThings virtual device. 1st you need to create a free Tuya developer’s account and then log into that account using a web browser to create the virtual devices.

There are many choices of devices to create. The virtual devices are actually copies of physical Tuya devices. You can only make one copy of each device, but this is not a problem since there are many choices.

Some of these virtual devices have Alexa and Google integrations, and a few actually have SmartThings integrations. Unfortunately many of the SmartThings interactions are one way. One of the Brazilian power strips gives you 5 or 6 virtual switches that actually show up in SmartThings.

See the following links for instructions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/smartlife/s/SC9tchQlye

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Thanks Paul,
I’m doing it now with actual smart outlets plugged into a power strip just to transfer triggers to Alexa… it works, it just seems like a waste.

Somewhere/someone said I could utilize the virtual devices in ST from SL, but I guess maybe I misunderstood.

Thank you for the link to how to create virtual SL devices. Certainly a lot more complex to create than those in ST!

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Only the first Tuya virtual switch is hard to make. After you make one the rest are fairly easy. The 1st one took me several tries to figure out.

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Yes. The house is already wired with interconnected smoke alarms as per local code.
I want to add to the garage and basement where they would be hard to hear.

I also got a bunch of smart leak detectors that I didn’t realize do not have any beeper built in…

And I’ve un into other of my devices that don’t show up as triggers, so it’s kind of a generic question.

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Once create, do they expire? Somewhere I read you have to keep begging to extend your trial subscription?

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I set up my developers account up a couple years ago, but I never used it because I couldn’t figure out how to make the virtual devices.

Then a few months ago I saw the Reddit page and figured it out.

I have not had to do anything since settings it up to keep it active.

Sometimes there is been a pop-up that I can’t get rid of and have to work around it.

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13

:+1: Native support, with more than one instance and things would be great.

Besides the physical smart sockets used to trigger Alexa, I also have two that are used to kind of store a Boolean state variable for a bunch of automation.

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