Have just bought Harmony Companion pack and wanted to get some feedback on the following:
Considering that I want to use Harmony Hub with Voice Assistants like Google Assistant (on Home) or Alexa (on Echo Dot) to turn on and off media devices, or to play certain content, do I really need to integrate the hub with HASS? What additional functionality would I get? Is it worth it?
One reason I suppose I would integrate is that I could dim the lights at the same time as the tv turns on (Lights are z-wave). Is there more I could do?
Any feedback, ideas, current setup details would be great.
Depends if you plan on accessing it outside of your LAN. You can do most things just with linking harmony to the home app and utilising shortcuts. Benefits for accessing it outside your WAN with home assistant is the ability to turn off/on linked devices.
As you stated a big benefit would be if you wanted to use automations when certain activities are on to control lights etc.
I did do it so I could use it in automations and the like but also because we only get the rubbish Alexa skill in the UK where you still have to say “Alexa, tell Harmony to turn on…” whereas using emulated_hue through HA I can just say “Alexa, turn on…”.