Using the Home app

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:28 am
rgspb offline
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Using the Home app

I've got everything setup in Indigo. Created a "Harmony Hub" device. Created five Action Groups, "Watch TV", "Watch Apple TV", "Watch Roku", "Watch BluRay", and "Turn Off TV". Everything is showing up in the Home app, and if I touch the button to run them it seems to all work fine. However getting Siri to execute them is another thing. It's been kind of a mixed bag, sometimes she says she's done it and other times she says she can't perform that function. Is there another Home app setup that I'm missing? Could someone do a step by step on how they setup just a simple "Watch TV" activity? From beginning to end if possible...how you setup the Harmony Hub device in Indigo, how you setup the Action Group, and what you do with it once it gets into the Home app.
Last edited by rgspb on Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:48 am
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Using the Home app

If the action groups do the right thing when you activate them from the Indigo UI or a control page, then this is not a Harmony Hub plugin issue.

How are you bridging from Siri to Indigo? That's where your issue is.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:08 am
rgspb offline
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Re: Using the Home app

It's definitely not a problem with the Harmony Hub plugin. The Action Groups all show up in the Home app and if I touch on them in the Home app they perform as they should. It's just when I tell Siri to do it there seems to be a disconnect. If I tell Siri to "turn on Watch TV", she does. If I then tell her to "turn on Watch Roku" she tells me "Hmm, I'm not finding anything for 'Roku'." If i tell her to "turn on Watch BluRay", she does. If I tell her to "watch Apple TV", she tells me "OK, just tell me what you'd like to search for." NOW, if I tell her to "turn on Watch TV" she says "Which one?" and gives me a list of movies and tv shows. If I tell her one more time "turn on Watch TV" she does. If I tell her to "Turn off TV" I get a different message each time. I'm thinking maybe it's my naming convention? Or maybe I'm telling her to do the wrong thing. Sometime she says "I didn't understand that Home action. Can you say it differently?"

So this is a Siri/Home app problem. I'm just thinking that surely someone else has run into this and figured out a workaround.

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:44 pm
durosity offline
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Re: Using the Home app

In my experience Siri/HomeKit too happy with words that relate to TV.. I’m guessing that Apple has deliberately done something to those words to reserve them for future use.


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Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 1:53 pm
rehafer offline
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Re: Using the Home app

There are definitely words that Siri expects to have certain meanings. I changed the name of one my outdoor "rooms" from Garden to Veranda because everything I asked Siri " What's the temperature in the garden" I got the weather forecast for Garden, WI. My scene named 'Release the kracken' works every time.



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Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 1:59 pm
rgspb offline
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Re: Using the Home app

So I wondering then what others are naming the Activites for the Harmony Hub to control?

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:00 pm
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Using the Home app

I moved this thread to a more appropriate forum. Unfortunately, there's no forum specifically for Siri/HomeKit issues.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:04 pm
rgspb offline
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Re: Using the Home app

Except that this also relates to the setup process in Indigo which so far no one has offered any advice. Not sure where the thread was moved to now.

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:07 pm
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Using the Home app

rgspb wrote:
Except that this also relates to the setup process in Indigo which so far no one has offered any advice. Not sure where the thread was moved to now.


viewforum.php?f=138

Well, the OP still hasn't said how they're integrating Indigo and Siri/HomeKit. HomeKit Buddy or native install? In either case, it's got nothing to do with the Harmony Hub Plugin, so it shouldn't be in that forum.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:26 pm
rgspb offline
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Re: Using the Home app

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood that question. Please understand that not everyone here is an advanced user and I personally tend to get tripped up with some of the terminology. I am integrating Siri/HomeKit using HomeBridge Buddy. Is HomeKit buddy different, should I be using that instead? Indigo is communicating with my Harmony Hub using the Harmony Hub Plugin. My thinking was that since using the Home app was part of the whole process it would be best to associate the question with the Harmony Hub Plugin forum.

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:33 pm
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Using the Home app

Sorry. HomeBridge Buddy is the correct name.

Your problem is getting Siri to correctly activate certain Action Groups. What's in those groups (HarmonyHub commands) isn't the issue, since activating those groups some other way works correctly. As the plugin author I don't want to have threads about non-plugin issues in that forum.

Maybe the HomeBridge Buddy forum is the right place. I don't know.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:38 pm
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Using the Home app

Just to be clear the chain of events is as follows:

Siri -> HomeKit -> HomeBridge Buddy -> Indigo Server -> Harmony Hub plugin -> Harmony Hub

or

Home App -> HomeKit -> HomeBridge Buddy -> Indigo Server -> Harmony Hub plugin -> Harmony Hub

The naming problem is in the first link, not the last two.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:43 pm
rgspb offline
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Re: Using the Home app

Ok, thanks!

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:49 pm
Different Computers offline
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Re: Using the Home app

durosity wrote:
In my experience Siri/HomeKit too happy with words that relate to TV.. I’m guessing that Apple has deliberately done something to those words to reserve them for future use.


Totally agree. I set up an iTunes action called "Skip this Song" and Siri would NOT pick it when I said "Turn on Skip this song", instead telling me that music wasn't playing or some such--because Siri was "paying attention" to the phone, not my iTunes server or the Home app scenes. So I renamed the action "Another Song" and say "Turn on Another Song" and that works great. (I don't use home bridge-iTunes.)

Asking Siri anything about my apple tv got similar result. So I renamed it to ATV.

I still haven't figured out a sensible way to rename my "Bedtime" action so Siri won't just reply to "turn on Bedtime" with "Goodnight to you too!" and will actually execute the action.

SmartThings refugee, so happy to be on Indigo. Monterey on a base M1 Mini w/Harmony Hub, Hue, DomoPad, Dynamic URL, Device Extensions, HomeKitLink, Grafana, Plex, uniFAP, Fantastic Weather, Nanoleaf, LED Simple Effects, Bond Home, Camect.

Posted on
Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:57 pm
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Using the Home app

Different Computers wrote:
I still haven't figured out a sensible way to rename my "Bedtime" action so Siri won't just reply to "turn on Bedtime" with "Goodnight to you too!" and will actually execute the action.


"Snooze Time"?

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

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