I preface this by saying that I have only had my homey for about a week. I am coming from Smartthings and Hubitat. In both of those ecosystems you can create a “virtual contact sensor AND switch” that can be discovered by Alexa to trigger an Alexa routine. What I’m trying to accomplish is this: I want to have a Homey switch that turn on/off an Alexa routine. I have read many posts similar to this and everyone seems to give the same answer. However, a standard virtual switch, whether from the Experimental feature or the Virtual Devices app does not work. It shows up in Alexa, but can’t be used as a trigger, only an action. Thanks for any help!
Just in case anyone new is stuck on the issue like I was. I found where I was confused. The answer is to work backwards compared to the other systems I came from. You need to create a routine in the Amazon Alexa app, then back to homey and use the Homey Alexa app to trigger the routine on one of your speakers. Sorry for the confusion. Maybe this will help someone else.
No sensors were needed in the Alexa app to accomplish my goal.
Hello, I am facing the same problem. Can you explain to me in more detail or examples of how you did this?
Hi . You can use this app
Virtual Devices App for Homey | Homey if you create a switch it will show in Alexa. Also have looked at the Alexa app
Amazon Alexa App for Homey | Homey you can run Alexa routines via that as well
1 Like
Sure, upon reading that post I can see where it can be confusing. I needed to create a virtual contact sensor/Switch (in other platforms this is a single dual function virtual device) in Homey to able to trigger routines in Alexa. In no platform I have used that has a generic Virtual Switch (not a Virtual Contact switch) will work because Alexa doesn’t allow switches to trigger routines only sensors or in this case, a Virtual Contact sensor. Now that the reason why it won’t work, here’s the simplest solution I have found to trigger an Alexa from Homey. Once your homey is paired to the Amazon app, start an Advanced Flow. After setting up the Flow, this is a Then card. Then->> Amazon App->> Select one of your Alexa speakers->> Finally Select "Your Device Will Trigger The ‘name of routine’ Routine (it’s the 4th option from the bottom.->> Then select your Routine from the drop down list. Hope this helps!
1 Like
OK, now it’s clear. thanks
