Alexa & Google Home - Emulated Hue

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

After my recent server crash I decided to give Hass.io a tryon a Pi3. I got it up and running and migrated most of my old configuration over but for some reason Alexa is not seeing any devices from HASS (specifically the zwave). This worked pretty flawlessly on my Ubuntu server without anything too special being done but no such luck now.

I looked through the Hass.io pages and did not see anything particular to Alexa. Has anyone else had this issue or have any helpful thoughts on the matter?

2 Likes
2

In your web browser can you access:

http://<HA IP Address>:8300/description.xml

Alexa should be fine finding devices on port 8300, but if you’re using a Google Home you’ll need to ensure emulated_hue is accessible on port 80. Let’s first see if description.xml is available.

3

They way my setup use to work I could not get anything on :8300 (Alexa) but I did on :80 (Google).
I removed the double emulated hue and left only the :8300 (Alexa) and I got the standard

<root xmlns="urn:schemas-upnp-org:device-1-0">
<specVersion>
<major>1</major>
<minor>0</minor>
</specVersion>
<URLBase>http://192.168.2.8:8300/</URLBase>
<device>
<deviceType>urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:Basic:1</deviceType>
<friendlyName>HASS Bridge (192.168.2.8)</friendlyName>
<manufacturer>Royal Philips Electronics</manufacturer>
<manufacturerURL>http://www.philips.com</manufacturerURL>
<modelDescription>Philips hue Personal Wireless Lighting</modelDescription>
<modelName>Philips hue bridge 2015</modelName>
<modelNumber>BSB002</modelNumber>
<modelURL>http://www.meethue.com</modelURL>
<serialNumber>1234</serialNumber>
<UDN>uuid:2f402f80-da50-11e1-9b23-001788255acc</UDN>
</device>
</root>

Old way (worked with Ubuntu venv HASS 50.2) but not with Hass.IO

emulated_hue:
  type: google_home
  host_ip: !secret google_host_ip
  listen_port: 80
  expose_by_default: false
  
emulated_hue a:
  type: alexa
  host_ip: !secret alexa_host_ip
  listen_port: !secret alexa_listen_port
  expose_by_default: false
4

It may be this:

Though using type: alexa seems to be a workaround for some people. From what I’ve seen if you can reach
http://<HA IP Address>:8300/description.xml

but not

http://<HA IP Address>:8300/api/pi/lights

then it is the same bug.

5

Well, that is no bueno. I just reverted to an older setup for Alexa since I have 4 Echo/Dot that we use for primary control,

emulated_hue:
  type: alexa
  host_ip: !secret alexa_host_ip
  listen_port: !secret alexa_listen_port
  expose_by_default: false
6

Yes. It really is unfortunate timing since Hass.io already has its own funkynesss (the addons, and people trying to get used to it) and it could have done without the hit to emulated_hue.

1 Like
8

I have both running on Hassio for looong time now. All I did on Hassio was play with yaml configuration never user any terminal command.

#########################################################################
## GOOGLE ASSISTANT & ALEXA
###########################################################################
emulated_hue:
  type: google_home
  host_ip: 192.168.1.111
  listen_port: 80
emulated_hue 1:
  type: alexa

It works out of the box for Alexa and Google Home I had to search for a old apk to get it sync and it was a one time thing. I keep the apk updated with playstore now and they work as expected and both control everything in my Hass configuration as expected.

1 Like
9

Thanks, I will give it another go tonight.

10

Works fine for me in hass.io too, no bodges needed.

By the way the hass.io user is ‘root’ not ‘pi’, so it’s http://:8300/api/root/lights

1 Like
11

I tried both ways but cannot get a read out for http://192.168.2.100:8300/api/root/lights or http://192.168.2.100:8300/api/pi/lights

emulated_hue:
  type: google_home
  host_ip: 192.168.2.100
  listen_port: 80
emulated_hue 1:
  type: alexa

and

emulated_hue:
  type: google_home
  host_ip: 192.168.2.100
  listen_port: 80
emulated_hue a:
  type: alexa
12

@Corey_Johnson, did you ever get this fixed? I’m suffering the same problem as you - I can get a ‘read out’ (with pi or root in the URL) using whichever I put first in the emulated_hue config be it alexa and port 8300 or google home and port 80, but not both.

13

Actually I was just thinking whether you could solve it using the multiple instance version of emulated_hue and set one to 80 and the other to 8300 then expose your devices to both.

Have a search for a big thread about it and you’ll find the files you need in there, just dump them in your custom components folder and you’re away. I use it to split devices between my echo and harmony.

14

Sorry, I have been away from my HA for a bit but no, I did not. I see @Bobby_Nobble made a suggestion that may work.

15

@randomusername… Yesterday I was finally able to configure Amazon Alexa with emulated hue on hass.io .
Please share your customize.yaml file and the configuration.yaml file so that I can look into.

16

The problem wasn’t getting them both to work, but getting them both to display information at /api/pi/ etc etc. Only one would show at a time, even though both worked. For me personally, it doesn’t matter now as I’m selling my Echo devices and going all Google. Thanks for the offer of help!

17

Hi, can you please share your customize.yaml and the configuration.yaml files ?

Thank you

18

Hi @RogerioNeiva… I am pasting the configuration related to Alexa and emulated hue. Please note that you do not need a physical hue .

configuration.yaml file:

emulated_hue:
  host_ip: 192.168.1.27
  listen_port: 8300
  off_maps_to_on_domains:
    - script
    - scene
  expose_by_default: true
  exposed_domains:
    - light

alexa:

customize.yaml file:

light.cree_connected_a19_60w_equivalent_fe03e539_10:
  friendly_name: Kitchen Light
  emulated_hue_name: kitchen light
  emulated_hue_hidden: false
  custom_ui_state_card: state-card-custom-ui
  show_last_changed: true
  state_card_mode: break-slider-toggle
  stretch_slider: true
  theme: happy
  slider_theme:
    max: 255
    min: 1
    off_when_min: false
    pin: true
    report_when_not_changed: false

Please open the port 8300 on your router.

Feel free to contact me in case you need any more details or help.

19

Hi, I can see in Alexa the Home Automation entities within Devices in Amazon Alexa and I am able to control the GPIO pins On/Off. So, from Alexa I am able to control Raspi GPIO pins. Great.

But I also want to the opposite meaning, I want to expose my Alexa enabled devices to Home Assistant in order to, for example, detect my presence home and turn On the Hall light which is not controlled by another Skill.

How can I do this ?

Thank you, regards and Merry Christmas