Set a HomeKit scene?

I have HomeKit controlling Hue, Insteon and Ecobee stuff. It is neat but I am running against a couple limitations - most importantly - Insteon keypads do not work. (well beyond just controlling the state of the one device to which it is attached).

My Goal - Using something (Hopefully an indigo + bridge combo) to make the darn keypad work! And by work I mean hit one of the buttons and it triggers a HomeKit scene. For the life of me I don't know why this is so hard. I have been able to do hacks where you can have home kit trigger off of a light changing state using the Hue remote, but I do have Insteon wall keypads installed and would much rather use them and not use a hack anyway. (Well this hacky).

I am actually confused as to why Insteon's Hub Pro can't just do this. I know that HomeKit doesn't recognize keypads, but a lot of HomeKit gear doesn't expose everything they can do.

Anyway - anyone know if is possible to use a combo of Indigo + something + home kit to set a HomeKit scene when I hit a keypad button?

Thanks!

i think what you are looking for is here

I saw that but I see a lot off HomeKit/Siri to HomeBridge, not the other way around. Based on the docs anyway.

Just to be clear, can a keypad controllled by indigo Trigger a HomeKit Scene? If so are scenes synced into Indigo from HomeKit some how?

There isn't any way to trigger a HomeKit scene, but then again HomeKit scenes are meant to be self triggered. It's hard to know if it can do what you hoping it will do without knowing what it is you are trying to achieve. I use HK scenes all the time and they, for the most part, mirror triggers and actions I have in Indigo that I want HK to do automatically under certain conditions.

For instance, I have a "bedtime" action in Indigo that shuts down the lights and locks the doors and sets a house mode to "bedtime", which in turn becomes "sleeping" after I turn off the last light by the bed. This all works with a number of automation triggers and actions I have regarding motion sensors, alarms, cameras and the like. From HK I have a scene for "good night" and "good morning" that essentially just fire off the Indigo actions.

In the same way I have a scene in HK called "I'm leaving" and "I'm home" that automatically fire based on my location and they, again, simply run Indigo actions as I want them.

So, while scenes don't synchronize I really don't need them to because Indigo is the brains of the operation and HK is just the front end.

Ahh, well then this likely would not work.

My setup would be rather simple, I would have 10 or so keypads around my home, which would be the only things in Indigo & HomeBridge. Pressing a button on the keypad would hit Indigo, go over HomeBridge, and tell HomeKit to set a scene.

Using the Insteon+ app with the Hub Pro, it lets you set scenes from the app. One would think it could find a way to do the same just with the Hub Pro, assuming you have a Home Hub. There are some Bluetooth buttons out there now what will enable this, but again, I would like to just use a standard keypad.

My setup would be rather simple, I would have 10 or so keypads around my home, which would be the only things in Indigo & HomeBridge. Pressing a button on the keypad would hit Indigo, go over HomeBridge, and tell HomeKit to set a scene.

Seems like you are making it more complicated then it needs to be. Why not press a button on the keypad that just simply executes the exact same scene in Indigo and forget HomeKit doing any heavy lifting? What is HomeKit doing for you in this situation that Indigo cannot?

Do you have any devices that HomeKit sees but indigo does not? If indigo can control all the devices why not just have action groups that have the same effects as HomeKit scenes? It'd be a pain to duplicate everything but once done that'd be it.

And, besides, given your explanation you CAN do this on HomeKit but it's complicated:

• Set up a device in Indigo for your KPL
• Set up a virtual device for each button on the KPL
• Set a trigger that when KPL button 1 is pressed it turns on/off/dims the virtual button 1 device
• Install HB or HBB to use the devices
• Set up an automation in HomeKit that when "Button 1" is turn on that you do some thing (presumably turn on a light or set your thermostat or any other things that Indigo could have simply done by now)
• Rinse and repeat, 6 to 8 devices per KPL synchronized to HomeKit and you can create as many scenes or automatons as you desire

Hah, I may be making it more complicated. I guess coming from not having Indigo setup presently, adding it is more complicated. Thank you for the information, I am debating whether or not to ditch HK (save the home bridge part for siri) or not. I really like the deep integration in IOS, having scenes right on the control center. I suppose I could keep that and just have those scenes trigger some action in Indigo that would do the same thing.

What I am curious about, and maybe you know - is what I am asking for even technically possible with HomeKit as it stands today? Meaning - can an accessory or a physical bridge trigger a scene directly? I know the Inteon+ app can set a scene, but it is right on the iOS device. Or can accessories only trigger events that in turn some IOS devices has to respond to to set a scene?

I really like the deep integration in IOS, having scenes right on the control center

That's the nice thing about Homebridge + Indigo, you don't have to give up anything and, in fact, you make HomeKit 2,000% better.

can an accessory or a physical bridge trigger a scene directly

You can create triggers in HomeKit that do what you want to do, but the apps you are using may not support them. Even Home's triggers are weak. I use the OTHER Home app by Matthias Hochgatterer and I love it (and it has amazing support for triggers by the way). It's $15 on the app store but I use Apples' Home for my front end and this version of Home for my management and fine tuning because it's a very well designed app.

So, yea, you can do it but you have to think about what both Indigo and HomeKit do and find the marriage. I've learned the hard way that if you try to make one do more than it should then your HA is jus frustrating but if you can find the harmony where different systems can work together then HA is amazing.

As a last example, I'm finding the harmony of where to use my Siri versus my Echo versus my Google Home versus Indigo - each one has strengths and weaknesses, you need to find which does the tasks YOU want better. In your case I think it's Indigo + Homebridge.