First time user with some questions

Questions & Help
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Hello all,

Since a few days I’m now the owner of a Homey Pro and obviously I’m stil learning a lot of things and figuring stuff out. I will be moving to a new house in two months (that will have smart blinds, heat pump, …) but for the time being I’m experimenting using the devices I have now (Sonos, Hue).

Firstly, I got intrigued by the examples they provide on the back of the box:

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However, I’m unable to figure out how to setup the first two examples.

  1. For this first example I would assume you’d trigger the flow by using some type of weather related “When…” function (to get the “It’s sunny & warmer than 25°C” part). However, I cannot find such a function using the built-in tools. I assume this would be triggered by a 3rd party sensor/service? It’s interesting because Homey does already use some type of weather service on the home page of the dashboard + it’s also available for certain “Then…” functions, so the data is certainly there.
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  2. After searching a bit on this forum, it would appear like this Flow is only possible when using a Chromecast? I did download the LG webOS app, but it doesn’t seem like that can provide a value that says “Netflix has been opened”. Since there’s also no Netflix app, I’m a bit stuck here. I would like to have such a Flow (for example when opening Disney+ or AppleTV).

Additionally, I have some random questions that came up while experimenting:

  • Is there a way to start playing a song via Spotify on my Sonos system? I’m able to connect my pc and iPhone via Spotify Connect (though those only allow you to play songs on those devices), but I can’t seem to add my Sonos. Using the Sonos app, there’s an option to play something from an URL, but that doesn’t work either. I would basically need something that says “Play this selected Spotify song on Sonos”. Simple example would be that you arrive home and a certain song starts playing.

  • This is probably too difficult to explain in short, but when would you create a Variable? I know the concept of variables, but currently I can’t come up with a situation where I would need either a text, number or yes/no variable. I would assume you use this when needing to add the same value multiple times? These are variables per device?
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Yes, I’m also still reading through the support hub, so I might find solutions in the meantime. But if you know some other great resources with tutorials for the basic and advanced functions, please let me know. I’m currently still in that phase of not fully understanding yet what the power is of Homey and its functions, but I’m sure I’ll get there. Just for fun and giggles, I made a flow that sends me a notification and Discord message whenever someone enters the WC :sweat_smile:

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I suggest you start with some Homey sites to learn how it works, like https://www.youtube.com/@homey/videos
There also some Homey blog sites https://support.homey.app/hc/en-us

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I use an IR blaster to do that. My TV has a ‘Netflix’ button that turns it on and switches to Netflix. I use that to switch the TV to a known state so I can then use IR signals to switch to Disney+, Apple TV and so on. By sending the ‘Netflix’ button I know the TV is on, so that sending the ‘Power’ button switches it off.

I don’t use Homey as my IR blaster (I use my Switchbot hub instead - I use Switchbot scenes and the Homey Switchbot plugin to connect my TV and flows).

You can use Homey to send IR codes, but that depends on whether it can provide the codes you need - unlike most IR blasters, the latest Homey Pro can’t ‘record’ key strokes. Which seems daft to me.

Andy

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There is an lg web os app in the community app store that can start netflex

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Cool, I’ll have a look!

EDIT: yep, that seems to work nicely! It does look like there’s some sort of delay when detecting if the TV has been turned off, but other than that, it works as expected.

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That’s possibly due to the fact the app polls for the tv status overy xx seconds (the tv does not send it’s onoff status to the app).
It can’t do that like every second, to prevent Homey from performance issues.
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