Hello,
I recently bought this:
https://www.amazon.ca/APC-Smart-Surge-Protector-Charging/dp/B07H5JSVTD
Anyone have an idea if I can get this to integrate with HA?
Thanks
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I also have that smart strip and found this post looking for an answer to this.
I was able to get it working…
APC has an Alexa skill.
Nabucasa (which I already had) has an Alexa skill.
Create a input boolean toggle.
Create a binary template sensor as a “door” type.
The binary sensor reports the state of the input boolean to Alexa.
Create a Alexa routine to trigger the “outlets” of the smart strip, when the state changes of the binary sensor.
There are other ways to do it without a Nabucasa account require more work.
Ensure you have the “Enable State Reporting” turned in in HA Cloud.
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Thanks to @jlanglois for the pointers, I was able to set it up without Nabu Casa.
Since I am a complete noob to HA, I had to find some more detailed guides to get this up and running.
I used this video to hookup Alexa to Home Assistant. Unfortunately, it omits the Proactive Events settings needed to get it to work, so I had to backtrack a few times. I believe that as long as you do it before you add your custom skill to Alexa, you shouldn’t have as much trouble as I did. This should be around the 12 minute mark in the above video.
Here’s the walkthrough I used once I had Alexa setup. Obviously, ignore the Nabu Casa blurb, and stick with the door device class, some people in the comments section noted issues when using the garage_door class.
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can you do ti without an actual alexa? or is the alexa API just the means of controlling it?
You only need the app, don’t need an actual Alexa.
the APC app? do you need it always or just to set it up?
Once you have the APC skill setup in Alexa and the routines in Alexa, then you can trigger the Alexa routines through HA. Then you never need to use APC or Alexa apps. There is a delay of probably 10 seconds or so from the time you trigger HA to when the devices turn on/off.