Indigo Domotics

bbruck wrote:

jay (support) wrote:

I follow a general rule: every light has a switch/button in-wall (or on-wall) that will manually operate it. Some loads (those only for accent lighting) may be controlled as a group (i.e. I have 4 hue strips as accent lights above cabinets and in the kick plate which all turn on/off together) but even in this instance I make sure I have a manual button in the room to control them (no matter how automated the on/off is).

Matt that's worth gold!

Or Jay as the case may be...

As the case might be.

In my old house, I had three keypadlincs. no one but me ever used them. My family is more binary, I think. On and Off. That's about it.

That's why I'm excited about these little switches. I just got three to test them out. I think from a family usability standpoint they might be perfect.

How do you automate turning them off when we go to bed at different times each night?

Caveat: No kids, just the wife and I, and the dog sleeps in the bedroom and does not get to roam around at night.

First, there's a Flic button so we can set Sleep mode, which triggers a bunch of behavior changes for Indigo.

Second, I have iBeacon presence sensing in the bedroom. If:

* both of us are in the bedroom
* it's after some arbitrary time in the evening
* Motion detectors in the house report no motion

Indigo will automatically switch to Sleep mode even if anyone forgot to set it. The mode affects the colors of Hue lights as well, based on trigger conditions.

I've had decent WAF and follow the similar approach to Jay.. Basically I use Insteon Dimmer switches to control the smart bulbs. One area where I don't use the Insteon switches is my main great room, where I have 2 lamps with smart bulbs + under kitchen cabinet bars - an Insteon motion sensor is used to turn them on-off.. WAF seems ok here as well, although sometimes the lamps are turned off manually (rather than electronically via motion sensor).

My setup:
- Insteon Dimmers for on-off/brightness control / Insteon keypads to perform color scenes/etc
- Osram Lightify bulbs - A19, Lightstrip (for TV), Under cabinet, and LED Retrofit recessed lighting
- Custom plugin that I've written, hoping to publish soon - uses a native python library to talk to the Osram Lightify Hub. Also includes a 'circadian rythym' mode. When it is enabled the bulbs will change color temp/brightness based on time of day - yellow/orange and very dim at night/early am, white light and bright during the day

I am not as big a fan of the remotes cuz they seem to get lost.. Although it is definitely easier.. For the smart LEDs they require constant power. So to do this right you need to re-wire the circuit for the bulb in order to ensure they are constantly ON.

This thread is great, and I hope other veterans weigh in.

I agree: if there’s not a switch, they won’t use it, UNLESS, it’s voice controlled with the Alexa hue hub.

Seriously, my wife and mother-in-law (WAF and MILAF) was low with an iPad and a control page. Their iPhone indigo apps? Forget about it.

Shockingly, once I installed the Alexa hue bridge plugin, they started controlling things they would never push a control page button for. They actually started experimenting, and through machine learning (e.g. me, listening to them and reviewing the Alexa command history), it worked surprisingly well.


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Yah - I've been thinking a lot about that yesterday and today. The Echo is on sale for $30, Hue color bulbs for $40, and Hue switches for $25. I'm thinking a little investment could improve several of these rooms...

Even better I have just come across Routines in the alexa app. So now rather than saying "Alexa turn on movie night" or "alexa turn off bedroom lights" we can do "alexa its movie time" or "alexa good night". No idea how long they have been around for.

Having to turn on and off things that werent really on or off devices confused my wife and others, but now I think its a lot more intuitive. I need to start thinking more about my setup as I dont think my wife has once used her indigo ios app or the indigodomo control tablet.

Oh course, all this voice control stuff works with Siri too.

siclark wrote:

Even better I have just come across Routines in the alexa app. So now rather than saying "Alexa turn on movie night" or "alexa turn off bedroom lights" we can do "alexa its movie time" or "alexa good night". No idea how long they have been around for.

Having to turn on and off things that werent really on or off devices confused my wife and others, but now I think its a lot more intuitive. I need to start thinking more about my setup as I dont think my wife has once used her indigo ios app or the indigodomo control tablet.

I just tried creating a routine with an action group and the Alexa app says "this device is not currently supported." Has anyone got routines to play nicely with Indigo?

Jim

EDIT: should have mentioned the action group is on a virtual device, and is seen by the Alexa app, and works fine with the plugin. I just thought the new "routine" would give more flexibility in the command used to trigger it.

I like to connect Action Groups to Virtual Switches for voice control with Alexa and Siri. Eg. I have a Virtual Switch named Gazebo Party, linked a AG to turn on the lights and set the ceiling fan speed based on temperature, and another to shut it down. “Alexa, turn on the Gazebo Party” is pretty easy to remember.


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Japple55 wrote:

... I just tried creating a routine with an action group and the Alexa app says "this device is not currently supported." Has anyone got routines to play nicely with Indigo?

Use the Alexa-Hue Bridge plugin to define an alexa device which runs an action or actions rather than an Indigo device. Then add this alexa device to your routine and it should work.

Thanks Jon, got it working now. Turns out I was way behind on updating...was still running 2.09 I think. (if it ain't broke...) Updated to 3.0.19 and all is working...big changes!

Many thanks again for this fantastic plugin - my wife loves you!

Jim

siclark wrote:

I need to start thinking more about my setup as I dont think my wife has once used her indigo ios app or the indigodomo control tablet.

As I've said for years, room-wide voice control is the killer app that home automation / smart homes needed. Love it or not, the Echo does it well. We look forward to doing a native Alexa Skill for Indigo at some point, but the bridge plugin and the new Alexa routines are certainly good enough for many scenarios.

Hmm except when I try and run my routines nothing happens and when I go back to edit them I get a red error under the phrase, "Alexa can't execute this response" even if I've used their example.
Still some teething

Jay I'm still waiting for the native integration to get thermostats to work. I used the Alexa hue bridge initially on Vera and it was ok but so much better when it was native (and when my Vera actually worked).

Flic buttons are 30% off for single and 50% a 4 pack direct from their website for today.