In my case I have a virtual switch call ‘House Shield’, which when I say “Alexa turn on house shield” will turn on the appropriate house alarm mode, and then broadcast “House perimeter has been secured” via my Sonos groups throughout the house, then “Alexa turn off house shield” does the opposite.
Turns out that in order to get the virtual switch exposed to Alexa requires you to disable the Skill in Alexa and then re-enable. This shows a list of available devices which have to be selected to then make them discoverable within the Alexa App, which you do by pressing the discover device button. All sorted now. Many thanks.
Thanxs for the comeback and clarification @Isablend, typically virtual switch has eight switches 1-8 are your saying that your somehow naming a single switch (of the eight) or is your device a single switch that’s named “House shield”, thanxs Mike
Virtual Switch is a different plug in than Multi Switch. Multi Switch is the one with 8 and does not work with Alexa.
Virtual Switch allows you to create one or more on/off switches that you can use to trigger scenes. By updating the file as described it can be used through Alexa like a normal light switch.
MNB, I use IPhone Locator to switch a Multiswitch. When both of us are gone, house goes to Away mode, which triggers a bunch of stuff including notifications to both of us. When either of us is home, the Multiswitch is off.
I’ve done something similar, but just used two individual virtual switches to track where we are. Use geofence to determine house mode and update virtual switch and do various other actions.
@RTS, thanxs for the input, as I’m experimenting with RPI I’m currently using scene(s) do the very same. As to Alexa I was hoping I could directly demand the mulit-switch.
@Don, understand since re-adopting iPhone Locator plugin I too have used my Multi-switch to turn On/Off my Home labeled switch.
@Isablend, you make mention of “Geofence” how has that worked for you? I had read mixed reviews in earlier thread discussions and was hoping that the function had matured to something that works reliably.
@MNB - to be honest geofencing is not there fully for me yet. I can get it working for one phone, but my wife’s (both iOS) has not proven as reliable. I did play with the iPhone locator app for a bit, but was hoping for better overall results form the built in Vera App, but not yet 100% convinced (and it takes such a time to test for all scenarios, going into and out of the geofence). I don’t rely on it for critical elements (but wish I could).
@pls90 NP, its hard enough to keep straight all the nuances ones own stuff let alone someone else… ;D
@Isablend, thanxs for update I had that impression when it was first being touted that conceptually it was a great idea however the reliability with current iOS phone detection was the so called “Achilles heel”. Looking through the various threads, I see discussions but no real “my solutions works” claims… I’m hoping that someone can contradicts my observation(s) and provide working solution(s).
I did the modifications on D_VSwitch.xml (for category and subcategory), now a “category_num” is visible (=3) on Vera for virtual switches, but virtual switches are still not recognized to be associated to Alexa.
I tried to reboot Vera + Echo, nothing new.
Do you have any ideas ?
Thanks!
Yes that is what I do.
I am going to Login but virtual devices don’t appear.
According to this thread you apparently faced some issues to have it functionnal (you were stuck like me at some point).
How did you finally fix it ?
Thanks again.
-I changed the xml file ( see attachment).
-checked the advanced section: category_num :3
-rebooted vera
-disabled the vera skill
-enabled the vera skill
-linked
-in the vera gui >> manage alexa:
no virtual switched show up, anything else i can do?