Domoticz and Alexa with Homebridge - Terrific voice assistant control method

[wdowdles]

So I've been using Domoticz for a couple of years with a number of z-wave devices round the house and really like the Domoticz system. I also have a number of Amazon Echo's for voice control. I had been using HA-Bride (Philips Hue Emulator) as the conduit between my Amazon Echo's and Domoticz. This worked well and was good for basic control. It let's me simply switch Domoticz device switches on or off via Alexa.

Recently I started looking into alternatives to HA-Bridge and from the Domoticz wiki there are 4 options discussed; Controlicz, Alexicz - Personal Alexa skill, HA-Bridge and SinRic. However I found another method which I think is very noteworthy and wanted to share it with the community and those looking to add an AI (Alexa, Google etc.) to control your Domoticz devices via voice.

I am now using Homebridge https://homebridge.io. After installing Homebridge you can then install Homebridge Edomoticz plugin. This lets you control your Domoticz devices in via Apple Home Kit on IOS devices, iPhone, iPad and adds your devices into Homebridge.

There is also an plugin for Alexa in Homebridge. All you need to add voice control to Domoticz is to add the Alexa plugin in Homebridge, create a free account on https://www.homebridge.ca, add the Homebridge skill to your Alexa account and final ask Alexa to discover devices.

The great thing about Homebridge for the Alexa integration is that Homebridge supports much more than just basic switch controls. It supports temperature sensors, thermostats, speakers and much much more.....well worth checking out!

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[renerene]

Very interestic. Gonne dive into this one.

Recently bought a second Echo device and Amazon Alexa software is giving me a hard time. "Turn lights on" can be done in different rooms, but nothing furhter than that. "Turn screen on" and Alexa knowing what room you are in and which device to switch, is not possible with HA-bridge, as far as my knowledge goes. Only one group (lights collection) per Echo. Think one of the problems is that HABridge only passes light devices to Alexa, also for screens, fans, etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation ... me_but_in/

Going to install Homebridge on my Rpi and let you know the result.
Are you still using HA-bridge or is it replaced by now?

[nl2rma]

Hi
I am using the Homebridge with the edomoticz plugin to control my lights from Googlehome.
One thing I have noticed and what I don't like is that when a lightswitch changes on the domoticz server by manual action or by timer that Homebridge (and that also GH) does not reflect this change until I take a look at the Homebridge Accesories page.
So if I turn on a light on domoticz than also I google home the light seems like its turned off.
Is there a way to make homebridge or the edomoticz plugin to refresh every few minutes?

[Marci]

Homebridge plug-in should be configured with MQTT as per docs for instant updates... however, that will only update HomeKit devices locally. Whether Google updates is down to Google. Homebridge can’t push to Google home afaik.

[Marci]

*dupe - snipped*

[extremeaudio]

I just stumbled upon this. Its too easy to set up, dont know why more people arent using it as compared to HA bridge and the other options which are both paid and painful to set up.

So i added a few devices to domoticz, connected domoticz to homebridge and then a discovery from alexa immediately showed the devices.

Now I am adding more devices to domoticz, but discovery is not throwing up the devices added in round 2. What is the correct procedure for this?