Question about Webcore, Smartthings and Alexa

#1

It’s not really a piston help right now but I wanna know people general usage.

  1. Is it a good idea to use Pistons AND smartthings routines, or should it be better to just use pistons?
  2. Also can i execute pistons from Alexa? (by calling it) Alexa piston name?

Thanks

#2

  1. Personally I only use Pistons - I find the greater flexibility and customisation of the pistons allows me to create better ‘Routines’ that I can with the standard SmartThings Routines.

  2. For this, I have created virtual switches within the SmartThings IDE, then just use ‘IF (Switch Name) changes to ON’ then the piston runs - Then at the end of the piston make it turn the switch off again, you can then have Alexa run these by asking her to turn on the switch, for these I use Alexa routines, because saying ‘Alexa turn on Movie Mode’ doesn’t sound natural to me, where as you can create an Alexa routine that says ‘Alexa time for a movie’ and that triggers the switch to turn on.

Hope all of this made sense.

#3

I can look into that yeah

Is there a way to look at pistons from the Smartthings app? (I know webcore has an app)

#4

What do you mean ‘Look at’ as in the back end to make changes from a mobile?
I dont think so.

#5

Nah myabe just having an easier way to see the lists

Just lazy and checking 250000 apps :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

Creating alot of virtual switches will kinda suck to talk to Alexa

Also having 2 create 2 pistons for that is kinda long i guess?

So exemple for me what i just did was

Create a switch called Good Night in Smartthings, and configured a alexa routing that says Alexa good night to start that switch.

Then on Webcore I have 2 pistons (1 that I called Virtual Switches) that says if Goodnight turns on then execute piston named Good night, and in that good night piston I have it says to change the location to night and close all my lights and stuff like that.

It’s lots of works but it’s good I guess.

#7

Another question, what is the rule in Webcore to tell Philips Hue light to be at 10% dim?

#8

Set level

#9

Thanks