Emulated_hue vs Home Assistant Cloud

Configuration
3

i’ve only used emulated_hue. from my reading, i don’t think there’s any cloud component feature that can’t be implemented using emulated_hue. the cloud component has native support for locks and media players, but i think you can get all of those things working with emulated_hue through scripts and (possibly) alexa routines.

if emulated_hue works for you, there’s probably no compelling reason to switch. it seems like some people have had perennial problems getting emulated_hue working which is an obvious reason to try the cloud component.

4

Yes, emulated_hue works fine for me. I just use Alexa to turn off and on my switches with comonent emulated_hue.
Can you please share script that I can you with alexa.
When i ask Alexa to turn on kitchen light, Alexa says “OK” and turn on light, But I saw many videos on YouTube there Alexa Says “kitchen light is on”

5

i don’t think it’s possible to have custom responses with emulated_hue. i don’t think custom responses are possible with the cloud component either, but i don’t know what the built-in ones sound like.

if you want custom responses, you need to follow the instructions here. you’ll then need to use commands like “alexa, ask home assistant to turn on kitchen light.” so it makes things more tedious.

as for scripts, i have things like the following:

good_night:
  sequence:
    - service: script.turn_off_all_indoor_lights
    - service: script.turn_off_unessential_things  
    - service: script.lock_all_locks
    - service: script.arm_home_alarm
    - service: script.adjust_thermostat
      data_template:
        temperature: '{{ states.input_number.heat_night_level.state | int }}'

when that’s exposed via emulated_hue i need to say “alexa, turn on good night.” but with “routines” in the alexa app, i mapped “alexa, good night” to “alexa, turn on good night”. so i can simply say “alexa, good night” instead.

hope that helps.

6

Emulated_hue exposes all your devices so they appear to Alexa (or whatever) as dimmable lights.

Cloud exposes each device for what it is.

As an example, if you add living room lights and a fan attached to a smart socket to homeassistant, and expose them to emulated_hue and group them as ‘living room’ in Alexa, saying ‘Alexa, turn the lights on’ will turn the fan on as well, because Alexa thinks it is a light.

It will only know its a fan if you use the cloud.

That said, this makes no difference to operational use so long as you are aware of how emulated_hue works and group your devices appropriately.

7

Not 100% true. As you quite rightly say it sees things for what they actually are, so if a light isn’t dimmable it doesn’t offer that option which makes no real difference as you also say. However, if it’s an RGB light it also knows and gives you options to operate that properly rather than bodges exposing scenes as other lights etc. It should also put you in a position to grow with the functionality the Smart Home api permits.

Remember you can also use the latest version of Haaska to get exactly the same experience without using the HA cloud.

8

I’m thinking of testing latest version of haaska instead of emulated hue.

Is this the correct git?
https://github.com/jamesking420/haaska-v3/blob/master/README.md

9

I’d be interested to see if anyone gets this working. The instructions are so out of date that they bear little resemblance to the current Amazon interfaces. I never got it to work.

10

You mean haaska?

If so I would also love to see a working tutorial

11

Yes, haaska. I don’t want to use the HA Cloud as I already have AWS. So far I’ve tried to follow the instructions but it just doesn’t work. I’ve worked around a few issues but I get stuck when trying to do the account linking in the Alexa App, I get an error “An error occurred while attempting to link Alexa with haaska. Please try again later”

No logs, no idea :frowning:

I’m not a developer and don’t want to learn to be one just to link up HA & Alexa :slight_smile:

12

Seems I’m not alone

13

And further reading suggests it needs payload v2 which is now deprecated and can’t be selected so this is never going to work until the code is updated to support v3.

14

There already is a v3 compatible Haaska skill on Github. Works perfectly and was a breeze to set up. Look for Mike Grant’s branch.

15

OK, I gave this a shot and sadly I failed.

EDIT: Manage to fix so when I run the Lambda test I can now see all my devices in the payload response.
However, they do not appear when I do find devices in the Alexa App

So Lambda seems to work but still they do not appear

16

I like the way the cloud exposes devices to alexa, but I still need emulated hue for my harmony remote. Does anyone know how to prevent alexa from seeing the emulated hue? I read somewhere I could configure emulated hue using a port alexa can’t see, but I can’t find a list of any such ports in the docs or elsewhere.

17

This one?

18

I used to use the multiple emulated_hue custom component which allows you to set specific IPs for different devices but since discovering emulated_roku I just use that with my Harmony to control devices directly with HA.

This also gives you the freedom to have the ‘smart’ buttons control different things according to Activity, for instance, different scenes when in movie mode than in relax mode.

If you are using emulated_hue as well you can just hide forget those devices in the Alexa web page.

19

That’s the one! Make sure you select the right Lambda location. Also had to adjust the make-file from pip to pip3. Other than that is was a straight forward install.

20

nice, I have the harmony home companion remote and for the moment I just want to pass the home control buttons into home assistant. emulated_roku passes the whole remote through HASS, so any tinkering I’m doing in HASS will break the remote for the other people in my house. I’ve bookmarked emulated_roku - I think it will be necessary when I integrate more media players. for now everything that happens on my TV goes through a roku

for some reason, any devices I delete through the alexa web interface get rediscovered within a day or so … so that hasn’t worked

I think what I’m going to do is expose 4-6 template switches on emulated_hue with unpronounceable entity names (so they don’t interfere with alexa) and exclude all other entities through emulated hue config. then use an automation to control lights/actions on those switches

this should give the added benefit that I will never again have to enter the terrible harmony software if I want to change the light/switch a button controls

21

No it doesn’t, it acts just like any other device you added to Harmony. So if you set one light button to be ‘Fwd’ on your emulated_roku device it just sends that code to HA which then responds by doing whatever you set up the corresponding automation to receiving a ‘Fwd’ command. Don’t set up anymore buttons and it has no more interaction with HA than that.

In fact, it’s more friendly when buggering about than emulated_hue because you don’t have to go through the detect process when you change things about.

22

hm, I’ll set it up this weekend to test. I have harmony companion. I saw in the Emulated Roku for Harmony thread that model seems to make a difference on whether or not the home control buttons are exposed.