Hue lights with Harmony Activities not working

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
Hue lights aren’t turning on

2) What is the expected behavior?
When any harmony activity has been on or turns on, turn on hue lights

3) What is happening/not happening?
Piston runs but lights aren’t turning on

4) Post a Green Snapshot of the pistonimage

download
download.png1178×515 78.5 KB

5) Attach any logs (From ST IDE and by turning logging level to Full)

/19/2018, 11:50:15 AM +728ms
+4ms ╔Received event [Casa de Pines].test = 1534704615723 with a delay of 5ms
+200ms ║Runtime (43408 bytes) successfully initialized in 135ms (v0.3.104.20180323) (194ms)
+206ms ║╔Execution stage started
+269ms ║╚Execution stage complete. (67ms)
+277ms ╚Event processed successfully (277ms)
8/19/2018, 11:50:10 AM +787ms
+0ms ╔Received event [Casa de Pines].test = 1534704610781 with a delay of 4ms
+185ms ║Runtime (43408 bytes) successfully initialized in 107ms (v0.3.104.20180323) (184ms)
+186ms ║╔Execution stage started
+253ms ║╚Execution stage complete. (67ms)

#2

I am going to take a guess that Switch 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 are Simulated Switches that turns on a Harmony Activity? (Or are you using Momentary Buttons instead?)

If this is true, then why not put the light controls in THAT piston?
You will have MUCH more control in your lights.

IE: Do Netflix Activity and set lights to red
IE: Do Hulu Activity and set lights to green
IE: Do Playstation Activity, set lights to blue and turn on the fan

If you don’t like the idea above…
I would be tempted to change your first command (line 18) to:
Any of Switch 39-47 … changes to on
(instead of is on)

The other peculiarity is line 20 & 23…
You have made it impossible to turn off RBG Bulb 5 & 6.
The instant they turn off, webCoRE will turn them back on.

Once you have made changes, the proper way to test this piston is to actually turn on one of the Switches from line 18. (instead of pushing the Test button)

#3

I didn’t want to put the lights directly in the Harmony activity because I find harmonys way of automation clunky. Ex. I ha E to use a desktop to setup smart home items in the Harmony application. I can’t just do it in the app. Since WB is web based I’m not restricted to using a specific device to set these up.

#4

I agree 100%. Harmony is great, but because of the ‘clunkiness’, it is always my LAST resort.

What I meant was:
Most people use Simulated Switches or Momentary Buttons to allow webCoRE to trigger the Harmony Activity. (you didn’t answer my earlier question… Are you using either?)

With this method, 95% of the code is kept in a webCoRE piston, (lights, colors, levels, fans etc). Somewhere in that piston, a brief command is also sent to Harmony. (Turn on NVidia Shield etc) It gives you the best of both worlds.

#5

No I am not using sim or moment switches. I would have to add those sim switches into the Harmony software for them to be linked. That’s difficult since I don’t have a desktop available to set that up with.

#6

I have always used it the other way…

The Simulated Switches (or Momentary Buttons) trigger a piston in webCoRE, and then that piston triggers the Harmony Activity. (as well as setting lights and fans etc)

This way, webCoRE does all the heavy lifting, and there is no editing required in the Harmony Activity.

I ended up giving my Harmony hub to my ex, so I don’t have a sample piston to share.
But if memory serves me right, it was something like this:

IF SimSwitch turns on
Then Set lights the way I want them
Play a cool sound effect
Log time etc
Run Netflix Harmony Activity

I may be forgetting something, but I think that was the basic structure…

I use webCoRE whenever possible, and only resort to Harmony as a fall-back when webCoRE can’t do something

Maybe a current user of Harmony can chime in…

#7

I totally get that and thank you for the example. The problem with this is that I need the lights to turn on if an activity is already on. So in your example I don’t need a simulated switch because the trigger would be having an activity on and turning the lights on if they’re not currently on.

#8

Does SmartThings keep an updated record of which activity is in use?

Maybe things have improved, but “back in the day”, ST was not aware of which one was currently in use. This is why I tied all commands to the Sim Switch. Hopefully the Device Handler has improved since I last used it.

Did you try my alternative suggestions from my first post?

#9

Yes it didn’t work. I don’t think the activities are triggers in webcore.

#10

Can the new Harmony software send a web request?
That could be a method to trigger a piston…

#11

I got it to work. I had to remove all my activities and re add them. Looks like there was old ones with the same name.

#12

Sweet!!

Would you please take a moment and share your working piston here so others can learn from it?

#13

Sure I changed it though.

download%20(1)
download (1).png1178×899 126 KB