It would be really awesome and simple for users if the emulated_hue component supported climate devices, more specifically thermostats. That way they can be exposed as a light entity to Alexa and the temperature can be set via brightness, in the same way that volume is set via brightness in the media_player component. For dual setpoint thermostats both setpoints would be exposed and controlled separately, as in, a heater and an AC device.
Would’ve thought that was very unlikely to happen given you can have proper, full control using the HA Cloud or HAASKA already. emulated_hue was great in it’s day and still is for specific functions but it sounds like it’s time for you to move on.
I still think this is valuable for the following reasons:
although HA cloud is awesome, some folks don’t want to use it or pay for it
HAASKA looks very interesting. I was unable to set it up because currently the documentation is incomplete (https://github.com/mike-grant/haaska/wiki/Setting-up-Haaska) and the old documentation has a lot of steps to take. Not that I can’t do all the steps, as I have do the google assistant ones. Also, I’d have to give Amazon my credit card.
With the emulated hue it would work very easily without the lengthy setup.
Emulated hue will never work with thermostats because gen 1 Phillips hue hubs cannot control a thermostat. They can only control lights. Emulated hue emulates gen 1 Phillips hue hubs.
I.E. Alexa expects them to only be lights because it see’s it as a phillips hue hub gen 1. That’s why everything, no matter what (switch or light or fan) shows up as a light.
Exactly, so it can do the same thing it does for setting media player volume. The emulated_hue will “pretend” the thermostat is a light and use the brightness level as the temperature for the thermostat. This is the same thing it already does to media players. It uses the brightness level as the volume level.
The goal here is not to have the thermostat show up as a thermostat in Alexa. The goal is simply to be able to say “Alexa, set the heater to 66” and have it set the thermostat temperature in that way. Things like “Alexa, raise the temperature” or “Alexa, I’m cold” or “Alexa, turn on the heater” won’t work. Only specifically setting the temperature will work.
I don’t think it’s a lot of work and it provides a quick and easy way to be able to set the temperature through Alexa. I do understand that HAASKA is the ultimate solution and I will switch to it once it’s more mature.
HAASKA is mature The devs have recently produced a ready made zip which makes it a bit simpler for those not so familiar with python but building your own Alexa skill is what it is.
The devs have recently produced a ready made zip which makes it a bit simpler for those not so familiar with python but building your own Alexa skill is what it is.