Virtual Devices and Homekit

I am considering the installation of some skylights that open and close automatically. They are HomeKit enabled. I am assuming that HomeKit bridge is one way, that is, new HomeKit devices won't show on up on Indigo.

I was wondering if I should create a virtual device to control the skylights such that when a trigger or scheduled event happens then it would turn on or off the virtual device. This would be relayed via HomeKit bridge through its automation.

Thus, if it get's warm in the house and it's cooler outside and I am home, it would turn on the virtual device and the skylight would open. If it is raining and I want to close the skylight, it will turn the virtual device off which would be recognized by HomeKit and would close the skylight.

Is this possible? How would I set up the virtual device? It doesn't seem to work that way. Is there another way I should approach this? Thank you all for this fantastic community.

[jay (support)]

How would you control the HomeKit device or get it's status? That's the key. As you point out, the HKB plugin is one-way so there is no way for Indigo to "see" native HomeKit devices.

The way I did this was to have a virtual device that indigo controls.

HomeKit watches the status of that virtual device, and reacts using its own control ability.

So:

Virtual do-nothing skylight control switch in Indigo.

Publish the switch via HomeBridge.

Set a Homekit automation that triggers the actual skylight when the virtual switch changes.

I publish a virtual device from indigo then use home kit automation to keep that synced with the native HomeKit device.
That shows the status in indigo.
You could do similar with changing that it indigo and using HomeKit automation to change your physical device

Thanks guys. I think this may be the best approach for me to take. I will post how it works out.


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Vellux has published an API, for anyone clever enough to do something with it !