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Informational Items Collected from the Community

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BWS Systems edited this page Jul 30, 2019 · 34 revisions

The list here comprises informational help that is gathered from the community of ha-bridge users

Q: Parameter “upnpstrict” in configuration file?

A: This was there for testing purposes a while ago before we switched to a tighter upnp selection method. In V5.3.0 we added the ability to be a little more flexible and there is now an option to use an older upnp search method. Reference #1102

Q: Is there a SIMPLE way to control these ZigBee devices through my Echo Plus using HA-Bridge?

A: No, there is no API on the Echo Plus ZigBee Hub to access from the ha-bridge. Here is a link to the request to include it in amazon https://alexa.uservoice.com/forums/906892-alexa-skills-developer-voice-and-vote/suggestions/36349165-locally-control-zigbee-devices-connected-to-my-ech. Reference #1030

Q: Alexa Duplication and recalling forgotten devices

Has anybody had a situation like mine. I have ha-bridge running on a raspberry pi 3+. The ha-bridge interface to the X10 modules (via Mochad) works great from the ha-bridge web interface.

The problem arises when I attempt to discover – I start with the Alexa Smart Homes where I forget all devices. I refresh the Alexa page to confirm there are no devices identified.

Then I conduct a Discover – not only do I get duplicates, but it also “recalls” previously discovered devices.
In my ha-bridge device.db file is only 4 devices. While Alexa only finds 3 of the 4 devices, it seems to have a historical memory to recall devices that I have since removed. (I did this because Alexa starting getting very confused with 15 devices – and started duplicating) .

All discovered devices are being called “Royal Philips Electronics smart device”.

Environment: 1 Echo Dot Gen 3, two Echos Gen 2s. Raspberry Pi3+ connected to X10 CM-15A for power line control.

Do anybody have any suggestions as to why it duplicates and also why historical devices are recalled?

A: Different versions of the echo may return different types to the amazon cloud. Where one light will have
a description as “Royal Philips Electronics smart device” The other duplicate name will have "Dimmable Light as its description. This is an issue with the Echo’s and nto the ha-bridge. Reference #1027

Q: Mapping Spark for Accept: [*/*]

Once opening the hue app and creating a room i get the following error:

The requested route [/api/51eac991c7e54de7971ce1229ac660a3/scenes/1/lightstates/1] has not been mapped in Spark for Accept: [*/*]

A: That method is not supported in the ha-bridge and was not intended to be. I do not emulate the full api, only what needs to be handled for alexa. You can ignore it as is just an informational output message. Reference #1010

Q: Alexa detects sockets as lights
How to Create Vera Scenes?":#verascenes

One small niggle – I have several domoticz sockets setup in HA Bridge, but Alexa detects these as lights and you can’t change that from the Alexa app.

Is there any way for HA Bridge to identify these as sockets to Alexa at all, or is that a Hue constraint?

A: Since ha-bridge is using the Philips hue bridge emulation, it returns all items as lights. Reference #1006

Q: Alexa Room Support

I have searched and searched, and still can’t understand how to (or if its even possible to) leverage Alexa’s Room support.

Use case:
Echo Dot in Living Room:
Alexa, Turn on the Table Lamps ‘>’ Turns on the Living Room Table Lamps.
Alexa, Turn on the Main Lights ‘>’ Turns on the Living Room Main Lights
Alexa, Turn on the Lights ‘>’ Turns on All Living Room Lights.
Bonus Points:
Alexa, Movie Time ‘>’ Turns off the Living Room Main Lights. Dims Living Room Table Lamps to 50%.
Alexa, Goodnight ‘>’ Turns off everything in the Living Room.

Echo Dot in Kitchen:
As above, but replace Living Room with Kitchen.

I can handle all the downstream macros, if I can at the very least, identify the calling Alexa.

Is there any way to do this – or approximate it with ha-bridge?

A: The ha-bridge does not support the hue scenes which would work for the rooms. Alexa does have a grouping function to group devices it knows about and map it to a name. The other item is to create an ha-bridge device that turns on the groups of lights using the multi command feature. Reference #989

Q: Windows install – won’t create /data or habridge.config files

I got it working well with X10 commander (for my X10 lights) however it won’t save my settings/devices because Ha Bridge) on Windows doesnt appear to create the device and config files. the install didn’t create blank ones either – so I assume they are created on first run. Bridge control has paths (unix format) that I can’t update because they don’t save.

A: Windows 10 64 bit has extra security (Read/write permissions) implemented for programs running from Program Files (x86). in fact Microsoft is starting to implement that for all 64 bit versions and I suspect 32 bit versions may follow.

This stops programs from editing (creating) files in Program files (x86)
The fix for this is to either run HA-Bridge as administrator or move it out of that folder, logging on Windows as an administrator won’t help. Reference #971

Q: Map HAbridge actions to Harmony remote buttons

Is there any way to get a Harmony hub to recognize HA bridge as an AV device rather than a home control device (Hue)?

I have working HTTP commands setup in the HA bridge, but since the hub sees HA as a Hue, the only remote buttons I can map them to are the home control buttons. I want to be able map my HA actions to any button on the remote.

A: No, since ha-bridge emulates a Philips Hue it will be an HA device. Reference #969

Q: How to Create Vera Scenes?

Is there a guide on making Vera Scenes available to Alexa? I thought i’d successfully created a couple only to find that Alexa sees them as devices, not scenes.

So the reason this is a problem is, Alexa thinks my “scenes” act like an on/off toggle switch when in fact scenes are more like a momentary switch merely trigger other actions.

I want to use my Vera Scenes inside Alexa Routines to enhance WAF, but if the routine only knows to turn on a “vera scene” it’ll only work once.

eg I have a Routine called “Bedtime” which equals this Vera Scene = Turn off lounge lights, rumpus room lights, set Downstairs nest to 16c, turn on Main bedroom Lamps.

A: Setting “No State (Do not update state for device)” to “true” does indeed solve the problem and cause Scene’s to work properly when the “device” is included in an Alexa Routine. Reference #962

Q: Run two commands with one HA Bridge Device (Yamaha AV)

A: I’ve seen a post asking how people can use HA Bridge to turn on there Yamaha Amps, here’s some info I have dug up.

http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-276-7262.html

https://www.heimkino-praxis.com/yamaha-netzwerk-steuerung/

https://www.andreas-edler.de/blog/2017/01/yamaha-av-receiver-mit-amazon-echo-steuern/

Reference #930

Q: Upcoming Vera api changes

Are you aware of up coming Vera api changes ?

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,56959.0.html

They are closing some port numbers and changing the way the URLs should be formatted.

Solution
This issue can’t be fully fixed by the plugin developers, however, it’s necessary that all the data_requests are made on port_3480, and NOT directly on port 3480, or on port 49451, or on port_49451.

So, any request that looks like this:
http://VERA_IP:3480/data_request?id=SOME_VALUE
http://VERA_IP:49451/data_request?id=SOME_VALUE
http://VERA_IP/port_49451/data_request?id=SOME_VALUE

Must be rewritten to look like this:
http://VERA_IP/port_3480/data_request?id=SOME_VALUE

A: Someone did put out a notice here for the vera port in #913, but this looks as if is just changing how to format the url and it will go to the normal port 80 destination. Reference #924

Q: Vera closing down port 3480

I just saw an announcement on Vera forum notifying developers about closing a bunch of ports for security enhancement. http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,56959.0.html

I just tried calling http://{veraip}/port_3480/{command}. It returns a job id. And HA-Bridge thinks the request failed as the response was not expected. Any plan to fix this preemptively or cross our fingers hoping Vera will allow an option to turn on the port?

A: So this will not disallow the usage of the commands, it will be just the format of the command and it will go to the standard http port (80). The commands will need to change in your ha-bridge config when you upgrade to the new version. Also more info in #924. Reference #913

Q: Which echo models can find HA Bridge?

A: It seems all Echo’s except for the software develpment ones will find the ha-bridge. See the reference for other information. Reference #890

Q: First action takes some time to actually trigger

I run HA bridge on my Synology (213j) and i am really pleased with the functionality.
What i noticed though is that the first action that is performed after a period of inactivity takes 6 to 10 seconds to start. Potential follow up actions are much quicker (takes up about 1 second). After a few minutes of inactivity i notice the same behaviour again. The actions that i use are HTTP calls. I see the same behaviour when i test the action with the Test On / Test Off buttons.

Is there a (configurable) sleep timer that i am not aware off? As far as i can see my Synology is in active mode and configured to go to sleep after 4 hours of inactivity.

A: So, you are hitting memory cache issues on your Synology. Since these machines do not have alot of memory, anything that is not needed gets swapped out. When the bridge is called, it takes some time to swap it back in at the OS level. Either run less programs on the synology, or switch to a raspberry pi for running the bridge. Reference #888

Q: SmartThings intergation the Google Cure?

I’ve been playing with the Samsung SmartThings developers console and there are lots of samples for different devices.
http://developer.smartthings.com/
It would be cool if HA-Bridge could utilize this cloud based tool! Devices created in it show up in its app as well as its Alexa and Google skills.
This would allow HA-Bridge to again work with Google home.
Since I picked up a google mini prior to Christmas I managed to get control of my X10 devices with it using this cloud based tool and response time is very quick.
It allows things from GitHub to be pulled in so creating and publishing a device handler may be all that is needed.

A: I believe the answer here is that using another Home Automation system that is Google Home capable and also can detect Philips Hue bridges (which would detect an ha-bridge) is the solution. Reference #876

Q: UDP Command Orvibi S20 Smart Plug

Has anyone got the UDP command working for the Orvibo S20 switches? And can you share your configuration?

A: he Orvibo S20 protocol can be found here

You have to add an UDP subscribe before each and an UDP on or off command:

My ‘on’ command:
[{"item":“udp://S20 IP:10000/0×6864001e636c**S20 MAC**202020202020**REVERSE S20 MAC**202020202020”,“type”:“udpDevice”,“delay”:“100”,“count”:"2"},
{"item":“udp://S20 IP:10000/0×686400176463S20 MAC2020202020200000000001”,“type”:“udpDevice”,“delay”:“100”,“count”:"2"}]

My ‘off’ command:
[{"item":“udp://S20 IP:10000/0×6864001e636c**S20 MAC**202020202020**REVERSE S20 MAC**202020202020”,“type”:“udpDevice”,“delay”:“100”,“count”:"2"},
{"item":“udp://S20 IP:10000/0×686400176463S20 MAC2020202020200000000000”,“type”:“udpDevice”,“delay”:“100”,“count”:"2"}]

Replace S20 MAC with the mac address of your S20 in hex and the same in revers order for REVERSE S20 MAC.

Reference #828

Q: Google Home changed to account.meethue.com with logins

Today all my devices was gone in Google home app so I had to connect to Philips Hue but now I’m directed to account.meethue.com to login. This page does only recognize the orignial hardware and not ha-bridge.
Also tried to change Emulate Hue Hub Version to 1709131301

A: Unfortunately, until Google changes the app api to not use cloud type services only, this will not be possible. They have taken away the ability to use local control from the Home. Reference #764

Q: Curl -k equivalent

s there any way to do a curl -k equivalent with the bridge devices to provide an insecure SSL connection? I am trying to run commands on a Vizio TV which work using the command line and curl -k from this API: https://github.com/exiva/Vizio_SmartCast_API

If I don’t use the -k I get: “Error on calling url to change device state: https://192.168…”

A: An alternative is to use the command type for ha-bridge and call curl itself. Reference #655

Q: Amazon Echo Round Robin execution – New Filter IP feature not working correctly.

I have 1 Echo and 4 Dots in the house. I have a single voice command that is running 5 separate actions based upon the IP address of the device (Echo or Dot) that requested it, however, it is sporadic at best, and more often than not, the device in one room is running the action that is assigned to the IP address of a device in another room. Maybe 1 out of 10 times does a device run the correct action assigned to its IP Address.

Just so nobody asks, all the Devices are updated to the latest firmware and are working correctly with the Alexa feature that determines which device you are speaking to based on which one you are closest to. This is happening with devices on separate sides of the house, which are out of earshot as well, so that is not an issue.

We always forget to mention this when we are having problems, but I have to say how grateful I am for all the work you have done. Both of my homes are fully automated, with the combination of Home Assistant, NodeRed and HA-Bridge. Without any of these, I would not have been able to accomplish what I wanted to do. It is an integral part of my setup, and I could not imagine living without HA-Bridge!!!

A: Unfortunately, if you read some of the comments on this impl, amazon has chosen a path where this does not work. Amazon utilizes all of your echoes to execute the command. So, echo 1 listens to you and executes your command by round robin selection of all your echoes and will pick the next one, such as 2, the next goes to 3 and so on until it comes back around to 1 and starts over again. This has been brought up to amazon. Reference #386

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