Turn off lights when media is played

#1

Hi there,

Im a new user to smartthings and just found out about webcore. After some research with google I couldn’t find someone come up with a solution to my problem. I would like to have my hue lights turn off when a video is played on my nvidia shield (e.g in plex, youtube or amazon video app). Also i would like to have them turn on again when a video is paused.

So something needs to monitor the state of my nvidia shield. I know there is a solution for kodi or plex only but that’s not enough for me.

Home assistant with hass.io seems to have a solution to what I need however I would rather stay with smartthings.

Thanks a lot in advance guys!

#2

You have literally hit upon the entire crux of SmartHomes…

With so many companies creating and innovating, it always falls back on:

(1) Each device sending/receiving (acceptable) alerts to/from a central hub
(this is why not every device is 100% compatible with every hub,
and every manufacturer wants you to use their hub)

(2) A hub that can understand that alert, and take other action
(this is why some commands will not work with certain devices)

This leads me to the conclusion that the commands being sent to Plex will likely not be identical to the ones being sent to Kodi. (and honestly, I do not want them to be the same. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses)

All that being said, since Nvidia Shield is Android based, you could use Tasker on your Shield to monitor which apps are in the foreground, and do different things based on which app is up. (Tasker can send/receive commands to/from the SmartThings ecosystem, which means (with good programming), webCoRE can control and be controlled by your Shield, thanks to Tasker).

#3

Thanks for your quick reply…oh wow. I didn’t realize this is actually something smart home systems seem to struggle with…i just couldn’t find anything in the internet which made me register here and ask.

Ok so Im a pretty noob when it comes to programming. So Im not sure if I will be able to go the tasker route.

Is this actually able to do what I want? Or am I getting something wrong here…

Thanks!

#4

Not so much a struggle between companies, since each company would rather you only use their products, and often don’t care or want to help with troubleshooting when a competitor’s device does not play well with theirs. The struggle mostly comes from us (the users) as we mix and match competitive products, expecting them all to behave similarly.

For what it’s worth:

Tasker can monitor System Events, so in your case, you’d have to find out the “Intent Received” each time the Play/Pause button is pressed. (and do the same with Plex, Kodi, Amazon etc) Once you know the intents, then Tasker can be programmed to take action each time one of those passes through. (including sending a command to webCoRE to take further action)

If the 'Pause" button is the only trigger, the programming might not be too tough.

If you can find someone else who has created a way to tie them all together, then that can make your life easier… At least until one of the apps updates, and things stop working for awhile.

#5

The way I understand that link is:
Home Assistant would need to be installed on the same device that has Kodi, which means that HA would be the one controlling your lights, not webCoRE.

I also could not find any reference to Plex or Amazon from that page…