How can I make a piston a Thing?

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
I’ve got a new piston built for letting my wife alert me when I am too enthralled in a game to hear her. It just blinks a light strip. Is there a way I can turn the Piston into a Thing, so she can click it in ST App or Actiontiles?

2) What is the expected behavior?
The ability to trigger a piston from the ST App or Action Tiles.

3) What is happening/not happening?
My ability to figure this out

4) Post a Green Snapshot of the pistonimage
https://pastebin.com/6dxe6TMh

#2

This URI Switch can call the piston URL. I have no tested it on https though.

#3

You could create a virtual switch then that would appear in things. There are youtube videos as well as info on making virtual switches on this site and the Smartthings site.You can even add the virtual switch to a voice assistant so your wife can use a voice command to let you know you’re lazy. Lights don’t usually work as alerts if you fall asleep though!

#4

Awesome! Hopefully it will one day be a bit less hacky and a bit more included in webcore, but it should get the job done.

#5

Virtual Switch! That’s the search term I didn’t know I needed.

I found Switch Mania, is that the one you are familiar with?

#6

No I’m not familiar with that app. You don’t need a 3rd party thing. They’re easy to make and work like a regular thing, but is basically used as a trigger.

Here’s a little video and there plenty more.

https://youtu.be/ro2CisLBLjIBuilding a ST Virtual Switch

#7

That worked perfectly!

#8

A less hacky way you could do it is to make a Routine in ST. That can trigger a piston very easily… Doesn’t appear in Things but very easy to add to any homepage on her phone for easy access.

#9

I just use a bunch of virtual switched created in the IDE for various things. I make an ST routine that just turns off the switch and have a piston look at the off trigger to execute. That way I get the piston to appear as an entry in the ST widget on my cell phone as well as ActionTiles.