Amazon Echo / Alexa

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Ok. I’m using it since friday with this scenario:

• HA Bridge installed and paired with my Logitech Harmony
• Hue Bridge paired with HA Bridge
• Added “Custom” Devices to HA Bridge like: “Ambihue” switch, Heating Thermostat and “Shutter screen”.

Here’s my feedback:

• Connection with my Harmony is a bit buggy and unrelieable. Theres often an icon that indicates a missing/broken connection.
• In general, the commands work well. Unfortunatly theres no way to get rid of the main group “Lights” in Harmony. So if you want to enable the light, it also switches on my 3 custom devices I’ve created a group “Automation” for that. But that doesn’t solve the problem.

I think for actually implementing third party lights its quite useful (if it will be more reliable in the future). For other purposes it feels wrong.

Maybe this is more interesting for people who just have an Amazon Dot without actually having a Harmony remote.

Just received my echo dot but it looks hard to use it with pimatic at the moment^^

It’s not hard, it’s just not plug and play
The HA-bridge takes about an hour or 2 to completely setup, depending on how many devices you want to add

@n3ro said in Amazon Echo / Alexa:

…looks hard to use it …

…i think “hard” was the wrong word for that… ^^ may… it was not plug-and-play and so it will take a bit time to setup the third-party-service… but for me it runs flawless…

@xCite86 Hey

Okay. The curl works in the shell but not with ha bridge!

http://USER:PW@localhost:8087/api/device/rfdimmer02/turnOn

Change device state, Could not send data for network request: http://USER:PW@localhost:8087/api/device/rfdimmer02/turnOff with Message: HTTP request may not be null

@n3ro Put http://USER:PW@localhost:8087/api/device/rfdimmer02/turnOn in a Browser a look if it works.
Why the Port 8087?

@Michael-Rudek

it works as curl command on the pi and in the browser if i use not localhost.

8087 is only the local port for pimatic. the external access is over https/nginx

@n3ro Try to use the IP on the Bridge and check for typos

@Michael-Rudek still the same

Request Error, Pleae look in your habridge log: error {“type”:6,“address”:"/lights/4",“description”:“Error on calling out to device”,“parameter”:"/lights/4state"}

but it works with custom script and this:

curl http://USER:PW@localhost:8087/api/device/rfdimmer02/turnOn

Great!

Anyone know the URLS to controll the following devices?

MaxHeatingThermostat
DummyLedLight

@n3ro

curious… if i set the HttpVerb to “Post”, and save them with “Update Bridge device” i got the error

Change device state, Could not send data for network request: http://user:password@192.168.0.200/api/device/switch_az/turnOff with Message: HTTP request may not be null -  HTTP request may not be null

i have to delete the device and create a new without touching the Http Verb settings to get them working again - changing back to “—Please Select—” wont work

you will find a example for max thermostat above in my howto.
dummyledlight was a dimmable or only a switchable device?

@xCite86 said in Amazon Echo / Alexa:

@n3ro

dummyledlight was a dimmable or only a switchable device?

This are dimmable/color switching devices

@n3ro

so you could use the milight-sample above
on/off an dimm will work… but for changing colors… hmmm… maybe you find a solution

@xCite86 It works THX!!!

Last step: run habridge as deamon^^

i hope i find a way

@n3ro

i’ve run that only as sh-script on startup… not as service

in /home/pi

nano starthabbridge.sh

insert

cd /home/pi/
rm /home/pi/habridge-log.txt
nohup sudo java -jar -Dconfig.file=/home/pi/data/habridge.config /home/pi/ha-bridge-3.5.1.jar > /home/pi/habridge-l$
chmod 777 /home/pi/habridge-log.txt

save and make it executable

chmod u+x starthabbridge.sh

add them to /etc/rc.local

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

before “exit 0” add

sudo /home/pi/starthabridge.sh &

save, reboot and it should run in background on startup

Hey folks,

whats to do to found the correct URL in pimatic to control a device?

i want to change to color from my DummyLedLight

I had to use the on command and the json part of the command.
Used the GET type and plain/html as type. Then the on command is the same as the first on command.
This works for every device I added so far

for german users i found a solution how to get an Echo without an invitation

https://www.amzecho.de/echo-allgemein-f2/echo-umtausch-trick-t302.html

I did it like that a few days ago.
It works perfectly. I just “returned” a recently ordered Max" Thermostat and replaced it by Echo Dot.
But I still wonder why