Hello everyone, I just started migrating my Hubitat system to Homey and still need to get my head around the different logic, but slowly getting there.
I am looking for a virtual switch - a switch you change the state between on / off and it remains in the respective state.
Background - want to use this virtual switch to activate or de-activate my irrigation system - eg Winter / Summer. Activating or deactivating a flow might be a different solution to the same problem I understood in the meantime, but need to figure out how this works.
Anyways, having a virtual switch might also come in handy for other things. I can get a virtual button directly from homey or through āvirtual devices appā - both solutions donāt offer me a switch. Searched the forums up and down and there a lot of threads talking about virtual switches, but could not find one how to add it into the system.
What do I miss?
Enclosed screenshot which shows the virtual devices I could get - no switch there
Virtual Socket is the one you are searching for. A bit misleading the name, but that one has a ON/OFF state.
Thanks! That should work for some of my cases.
Follow-up question - I do have an Alexa routine which starts when I disable an alarm and switches on an virtual button in this case to further start a Hubitat rule, which would be a flow in Homey, to trigger all kinds of lights and blinds.
Now, virtual buttons are not exposed to Alexa as far as I can see and I just tested a virtual socket which is exposed to Alexa, but can not be switched by the amazon system. How could I trigger a flow to start by an Alexa routine wihtout wasting a real switch / module?
Add on question - is there a way to change the type of a unit? I have a Shelly dimmer module which was categorized as light, but is controlling a fan in reality.
Thereās two apps also for adding virtual devices to Homey
Maybe you can find one which does appear @ alexa
- Virtual Devices
- Advanced Virtual Device (part of Device Capabilities app)
Not possible to use a existing device within Alexa as trigger? For instance I set my Google speaker to mute (done by a flow in Homey) and then it starts a Google-routine on the speaker itself.
Thanks! Iāll try.
@Tango_Oscar_Mike If I understand your use case correctly, I think you want to have an Alexa routine trigger a Homey flow? If so, then you donāt need virtual devices for that - you can do it directly with the official Alexa skill. See here: https://support.homey.app/hc/en-us/articles/4409837342354-Starting-Flows-with-Amazon-Alexa
You just have to make sure you make the flow a āfavouriteā as thatās what ensures itās published to Alexa as a scene.
Thanks a lot Jonathan! Yes, that is what I was looking for! Very helpfull information!
Thinking about it, that would probably also worked with Hubitat. Well, it worked with my way until now 
Tom
