Can someone explain to my why lock control is prohibited from scenes when i can control them individually via Alexa? It’s a significant limitation with automating and creates far more complexity than needed.
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There are many threads on this topic in the forum. The basic reason is that Amazon offers a list of features to each vendor to implement. Security devices is one of them. Vera has not yet chosen to enable this feature at this time. So that is why the Vera says you can’t but in the app for Alexa you can.
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To bypass waiting for Vera to update the Alexa skill, (will not likely happen in your liftime if you are over 60 years old), try the following. I’ve been doing this since Alexa was added to Vera:
1.) Create 2 scenes. One that unlocks the lock. The other to lock the lock.
2.) Add a Virtual ON/OFF Switch.
3.) Trigger the scene used to lock the door with the VSwitch turned (off)
4.) Trigger the scene used to unlock the door with the VSwitch turned (on)
5.) Name your VSwitch anthing other than door. Example “Entry Bypass”.
6.) Add the VSwitch to Alexa.
You can then unlock your door by saying “Alexa, turn on Entry Bypass” and lock your door by saying “Alexa, turn off Entry Bypass”.
Hope that helps.
Tom
similar to the suggestion above, i use alexa to control my house modes plugin via scenes. i embedded the lock/unlock controls in the house modes which you can customize in the dashboard page via my modes. hth…
[quote=“ZW-Tom, post:3, topic:200310”]To bypass waiting for Vera to update the Alexa skill, (will not likely happen in your liftime if you are over 60 years old), try the following. I’ve been doing this since Alexa was added to Vera:
1.) Create 2 scenes. One that unlocks the lock. The other to lock the lock.
2.) Add a Virtual ON/OFF Switch.
3.) Trigger the scene used to lock the door with the VSwitch turned (off)
4.) Trigger the scene used to unlock the door with the VSwitch turned (on)
5.) Name your VSwitch anthing other than door. Example “Entry Bypass”.
6.) Add the VSwitch to Alexa.
You can then unlock your door by saying “Alexa, turn on Entry Bypass” and lock your door by saying “Alexa, turn off Entry Bypass”.
Hope that helps.
Tom[/quote]
Forgive me a stupid question, but how do you create a virtual switch? Thanks!
Virtual switches are devices added by installing an app in vera. You can browse them in the menu through Apps - Install Apps. There are plenty of choices - in my case, i use home modes plugin as it is already preconfigured. You may try Virtual on/off switch. Upon installation of the app, wait a few minutes and a switch will be added to your list of devices. You may then use scenes to automate other devices when the switch is controlled such as unlock the door when switch is turned off.
These are work arounds on the limitations of Vera and Amazon, glad that we are able to help each other.
How do you add the VSwitch to Alexa, are you adding a category and subcategory number to the device to get it to show up?
Any suggestions on how to get the status of a door/window sensor?
If you use Switchboard to create your virtual switches instead of the ancient VirtualSwitch plugin, Alexa finds the devices out of the box without any further configuration on your part.
Thanks rigpapa. I’ll check it out.