Goodbye Routine Piston

#1

Simple “Goodbye Routine” piston I created than can be called 3 different ways. By speaking “Goodbye” to Alexa (triggered by a virtual switch), automatically when both phone’s presence are gone, or by waving your hand over the proximity sensor on a Lowes / Centralite keypad. The last is my favorite. It shows up as a motion sensor in WebCORE but only reacts when your hand is ~6 inches from it so it doesn’t get set off unless you intend it to. Mine is mounted by the back door so it’s a nice gesture-based method to shut the house down.

When triggered, the piston shuts off all smart lights, pauses the kitchen Sonos, and waits 3 minutes before arming SHM and setting your location mode to away, giving you plenty of time to get out of the house. Nothing crazy here… mostly just wanted to share the idea for using the keypad as a motion sensor to trigger.

Goodbye
Goodbye.png1178×994 157 KB

#2

Did you set up Goodbye in Alex to trigger a virtual switch to “on”? If so, what is triggering it back off?

#3

Yes, you are correct. I have an Alexa routine, in the Alexa mobile app, that turns on a virtual switch (Switch 7 in the screenshot) when I say “Goodbye”. I just use the native Smart Lighting SmartApp to turn it off after 5min, as it’s pretty unlikely that my goodbye routine would need to be triggered twice within 5min.

I have a similar virtual switch setup for a goodnight routine so I can just tell Alexa “Goodnight”. Pretty cool to be able to say custom phrases and then have Webcore do whatever. I know there are probably other means to do this but it is simple and works for me.

#4

Thanks! I am just learning about Alexa (got a few dots for xmas). Do you just say “Goodbye” or “Goodnight” or do you have to say “Alexa do Goodbye”?

#5

The Echo devices now support some natural language statements to start an Alexa routine. So you could even say something like “Alexa, I’m outta here” and have it turn on the virtual switch which would then run the piston.

The only real condition is that you have to start with “Alexa” to wake the device up.

That’s cool. I don’t have one of those, so I use a double-tap feature on one of my Smart Switches to do the same thing.

#6

Forgive me for asking stupid questions but I am learning. In the Alexa app, when you setup a routine you have to put in what you will be saying. So you are saying that you don’t necessarily have to say it exactly as you put in the app?

#7

No. You still need to say what you told the Alexa to listen for… The point was you could make it what you want. His initial question was whether or not you had to tell the Alexa to “Do Goodbye”. So my response was to let him know that the phrasing of it did not need to be so clunky. But you’re right, the Alexa needs to know what you’re going to say otherwise it won’t run the routine. But at least now we have some flexibility in what we can choose to tell it.

#8

Gotcha!

#9

Yeah, double-tap would fulfill a similar role as the Iris keypad (triggering a routine without using voice commands or pulling out your smartphone), but I could never get it to work reliably on my GE switches. But regardless the method, sometimes it’s nice to be able to do home automation stuff without the awkward interfaces of voice control or extra steps of fumbling through phone apps.

I will say in regards to the keypad there’s something about waving your hand through thin air and watching all the lights fade down that’s pretty satisfying!

#10

Are you using that keypad with an Iris hub or do you have it directly integrated through ST? I have read that it is possible to get a DTH for this keypad which sounds awesome. Wondering if that’s what you did and how it’s working out for you.

#11

It’s directly integrated with Smartthings. It does require a custom device handler as it is not officially supported. You can find that here:

It works quite well. In combination with the smartapp “User Lock Manager” you can use it to arm and disarm SHM and/or run routines. I actually have two of the Iris Keypads and one stopped working but I suspect it’s just a dead battery that I haven’t got around to replacing. The other one has worked great.