Been a few threads recently on the topic, so might be useful? There are some things I've figured out through trial and error that I wish I would have known from the start, and I'm sure there's plenty more that I've not figured out yet. Some of my tips/quirks may well be incorrect as well! - The Hue Gen2 bridge is required for scene support via third party integrations, e.g. Echo, IFTTT, Harmony. It's advertised as the "HomeKit Ready" model, but aspect isn't really highlighted. - The Hue Gen2 bridge is also more responsive than the Gen1. I upgraded bridges for scene support, but a side effect is that I'm sure there's less lag on the Hue switches/sensors controlling lights. If I was to put a number on it, perhaps down from 500ms to 200ms? - The Hue "transfer settings" only does the Hue hub, third party integrations need re-configuring, and can be a real pain. - Logitech Harmony can only import 50 scenes. Any more than this just get clipped off. I created some scenes for my activities since it's a bit of a pain to set for individual bulbs, only to find that I was unable to access them via harmony - it just stops importing after 50. - On the Sonos One, you can't change the wake word from "Alexa", shame on me for assuming the capability would be the same as the Amazon devices. I just got one for and have no choice but to send it back, or mute the mic, since there's already an Alexa living in my house and she was here first. - Renaming Sonos Devices as the name of the room allows more natural control of music via Echo. I had hoped that the grouping capability recently added to Alexa would make an assumption that if there was a music player in a room, that I would rather play on that than the tinny mic on the dot, but not so. At least if you re-name the echo to "Kitchen Echo" or the like, and the Sonos to just "Kitchen", you can ask Echo to "Play music in kitchen" and it will play on Sonos. - Hue Scene support via Alexa doesn't care about your room groups. The scenes are imported as e.g. "Relaxed in the Study", "Relaxed in the Bedroom" etc. You can add them to room groups, but there's no point, and you can't rename them to just the scene name (because then you'll have a bunch of scenes the same name. You have to say "Turn on relaxed in the Study" even if you're commanding via an echo grouped in the Study. Anyone else with morsels of wisdom?
At present, I've only got smart sockets, not light bulbs although I do have lighting attached to some of the smart sockets. Until I took the plunge, I was always told that you need a smart hub to control the sockets, which I'm happy to report isn't the case. You can fill your home with smart sockets, register them in (my case) Google Home and off you go, creating scenes or IFTTT applets to control them as you see fit - no hub required! I am hoping that IFTTT will eventually be more customisable like 'if this or this then that or that' etc. One trigger and one action just isn't enough for some desired outcomes.
Hmm, not aware of that one. I'll have a look into it! IFTTT, while somewhat hamstrung, is utterly reliable for me. I just wish you could set multiple conditions and/or outcomes.
