Guide to Connecting gBridge to Homey for Google Assistant

Devices
61

Well need to make the LWT optional, so need to add do some settings first before i can publish it

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62

No rush :slightly_smiling_face:

What does Lastwill do?
Is there any harm to disable it?

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LWT = Last Will and Testament

Its a predefined topic + message that is published when a client looses connection.
And disabling it, does not harm anything.

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Uploaded for approval.

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65

Well doneā€¦ That was fast

66

@scanno

Is there a way to connect to two different brokers simultaneously with your client - one for use in flows and one for MQTT-Hub or will I have to install the ā€˜otherā€™ client app, or bridge brokers?

Could I install it twice with a rename - via CLI or will that confuse the MQTT-Hub usage?

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At the moment there is no way (besides renaming the client and cli install it i guess) to connect to multiple brokers. Ofc that is something that can be added if the nodejs lib can support that.

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It was just a thought - maybe bridging is actually going to work out better as I donā€™t want to load Homey unduly.

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Well it is possible i guess, but i would need to create another broker connection instance. But this is not something i can do on a short time.

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Just did a little testā€¦
Got two connections running to different brokersā€¦ So its possibleā€¦
But the logic behind this (like settings, setting topics) is a bit more workā€¦

71

What is exactly needed for gBridge?

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Iā€™m new to gBridge but they offer a hosted MQTT broker which then precludes you using a local one for something else e.g. flows via your client (there are other options though) . To connect to gBridge is pretty easy - you preface the topics with your username gbridge/username/# as you canā€™t subscribe to root. So supporting that directly as a broker doesnā€™t need much config at all, and topic is fixed.

However I think the posts above suggest a workaround within MQTT-Hub which would preclude you using MQTT-Hub for its normal role (homie3) so that might not suit me. Iā€™m thinking it might need Harrie to support gBridge specifically if you also want to use homie3. Not given any thought to if that is something sensible to do.

At the moment I use flows through your app alongside MQTT-Hub with homie3 so to add gBridge an MQTT bridge to local server might be the best way forward or a full local hosted gBridge.

You have the additional complexity of Homey apps using your client via API and thus need a way for them to define a broker (and maybe topics).

I can see from an ease of use perspective people liking a plug and play gBridge solution as this allows them to use Google Assistant or a Google Home Hub screen to control Athom devices, but I have other ways to achieve this so itā€™s not a request as such.

Let me play some more and Iā€™ll post backā€¦

73

Sent you a small donation

1 Like
74

If you use mosquitto you can then bridge it to gBridge. Thatā€™s what Iā€™m doing now and it works perfectly. The change in MQTT Hub is to make brightness go from 0.0-1.0 to 0-100 which from what I understand do not break homie 3.0 since it is not specified in the convention.

From what I can tell what you want is already possible.

75

Yes, I too have bridged my brokers and it works well. The absence of 0-100 dim was a problem for my HomeAssistant integration so having that helps too. homie3 doesnā€™t specify this but Itā€™s the change of the homie root topic name and the next sub level names that I was more concerned about. But bridging the brokers suits me better I think anyway.

K

76

Ah ok. Didnā€™t realize that the names of those topics were non-optional.

77

Moving conversation back here as it was muddying up the MQTT Hub Thread

so I did this in GBridge

Light: Window Lights
Features and MQTT-Topics:
On and Off
gBridge/u***/window-light/onoff
gBridge/u***/window-light/onoff/set

Brightness
gBridge/u***/window-light/brightness
gBridge/u***/window-light/brightness/set

in MQTT Hub I have

COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL - Custom
ROOT TOPIC = gbridge
Device ID = my u*** id from gBridge
Include Class and Include Zone unticked or off

I hit the switch in Homey and it doesnt replicate to gBridge

When the light state in gBridgeā€¦ should I see the log entry in MQTT Hub?.. seems I shouldā€¦

78

The root topic needs to be gBridge

I think the protocol should still be Homie Convention v3.0.1 (but will work with custom as long as you donā€™t include class or zone options)

1 Like
79

arrghh, SORRY!
So stupid!

Yes that was what was wrong

Thanks!

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Glad youā€™re up and running