Homebridge Driver for HomeKit Support?

[dppeak]

Joshua,

If we purchased the Driver via HouseLogix, do I need to do something special to make sure my dealer can still update to the latest version of the driver?

Also, on the topic of AV control, it would be great to be able to control the volume of the music playing on speakers that I connect to via Sharebridge with my watch.

I've noticed that with the latest AppleTV 4K and Control4 plugin, the Apple remote now controls the system volume with its volume buttons.  I'm hoping that they will get around to supporting the volume control within their Home app.  I know that Eve and other HomeKit apps support that feature, just frustrating that they don't.

By the way, your plugin has been one of the best parts of getting Control4 in the house!

[Joshua Pressnell]

On 12/9/2020 at 1:55 AM, dppeak said:

Joshua,

If we purchased the Driver via HouseLogix, do I need to do something special to make sure my dealer can still update to the latest version of the driver?

Also, on the topic of AV control, it would be great to be able to control the volume of the music playing on speakers that I connect to via Sharebridge with my watch.

I've noticed that with the latest AppleTV 4K and Control4 plugin, the Apple remote now controls the system volume with its volume buttons.  I'm hoping that they will get around to supporting the volume control within their Home app.  I know that Eve and other HomeKit apps support that feature, just frustrating that they don't.

By the way, your plugin has been one of the best parts of getting Control4 in the house!

I've used a common licensing system for my drivers from the start, so other than getting your driver updates from Blackwire or from my website, nothing else needs to change. 

RE room volume control, the Home app only recognizes apple speakers for room volume.  I've implemented room volume and while the device does show up in Home, it shows as "unsupported device".  It works properly in Elgato Eve, however.  There is a way to get around that, although it's a little ugly.  If you use a "virtual dimmer" and link room volume to the dimmer level via programming, then you can use a "dimmer" in HomeKit to control room volume.  The "ugly" part is that Siri considers it a light, so if you say "turn off all the lights" it will also mute all your rooms.  But if you use the Home app more often than not over Siri, it works pretty well.

Glad you're enjoying the driver!

[dppeak]

@Joshua Pressnell Is there any way to get the items under Watch or Listen to show up in HomeKit?  Currently only the Lighting elements show up.  I'd like to be able to have the sources for Watch (Apple TV, Cable & Blu-Ray) show as options under a HomeKit "TV" accessory.   Hoping this would allow HomeKit to switch the room On/Off.

Would be great to also have Listen show up under a Speaker accessory.

Thanks!

[zaphod]

I don't think that AV devices are supported in Homekit, but you can fake this by creating dummy lights.  Create a light called "KitchenTV" and then program in C4 "If KitchenTV Light turns on then turn on Kitchen TV".  That way using Homekit to turn the "light" on and off will turn the TV on and off.

[Joshua Pressnell]

On 2/4/2022 at 12:41 PM, dppeak said:

@Joshua Pressnell Is there any way to get the items under Watch or Listen to show up in HomeKit?  Currently only the Lighting elements show up.  I'd like to be able to have the sources for Watch (Apple TV, Cable & Blu-Ray) show as options under a HomeKit "TV" accessory.   Hoping this would allow HomeKit to switch the room On/Off.

Would be great to also have Listen show up under a Speaker accessory.

Thanks!

The last I tested it, the Home app (and thus Siri) would not recognize 3rd party speaker accessories. They end up showing as "unsupported accessory".  3rd party HomeKit apps (Elgato Eve, etc) do see Homebridge speakers and operate correct with them, but since the main reason people want integration of Control4 with HomeKit is so they can use the built in iOS support, it's sort of problematic for me.

The mechanism Zaphod suggests is a good alternative.  I generally use this approach to sync Control4 Scenes to a "switch" in HomeKit.  (While dummy lights will initially show up as switches during import, you should change them to switches in Homebridge to avoid issues when saying "Hey Siri, turn all the lights off").  If you name the dummy switch AppleTV in HomeKit, then you can say "Hey Siri, turn on the Apple TV in the Kitchen" and it should work.  I think HomeKit has some reserved words, so you may not be able to use "Apple TV" as the name and have Siri work quite right, but you can fiddle with it until you get it how you like.

[dppeak]

The reason I asked about the Watch items, is that this new HomeKit driver setup 

says that they will appear in TV Accessory within HomeKit.  I've had the Veritas driver installed for years and I'm usually under the thinking that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".  However, the one draw back we've had is that we still have to use the Control4 remote to select source and also turn off the room when done.  I don't know exactly how they adding their features, but wondering if it's possible to add to this driver.

 

[Joshua Pressnell]

8 minutes ago, dppeak said:

The reason I asked about the Watch items, is that this new HomeKit driver setup 

says that they will appear in TV Accessory within HomeKit.  I've had the Veritas driver installed for years and I'm usually under the thinking that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".  However, the one draw back we've had is that we still have to use the Control4 remote to select source and also turn off the room when done.  I don't know exactly how they adding their features, but wondering if it's possible to add to this driver.

 

It's possible Apple has changed some things since I last went exploring.  I'll go take a look.  I'm always happy to be adding more to my driver/plugin support list.

[dppeak]

Thanks @Joshua Pressnell.  You've always been great with support.

[Amr]

On 2/8/2022 at 7:58 PM, Joshua Pressnell said:

It's possible Apple has changed some things since I last went exploring.  I'll go take a look.  I'm always happy to be adding more to my driver/plugin support list.

Hello Joshua, I have an issue with the driver on 3.3, it doesn’t list all loads in a project and it’s producing an error message: Error Parsing return status: calling 'GetVariable' on bad self (idDevice should be a number)

 

[Joshua Pressnell]

2 hours ago, Amr said:

Hello Joshua, I have an issue with the driver on 3.3, it doesn’t list all loads in a project and it’s producing an error message: Error Parsing return status: calling 'GetVariable' on bad self (idDevice should be a number)

 

I think you sent me an email on this?  I've just been a little behind on catching up with emails this last week, as it's been one of those weeks.  I'll follow up with your email soon, but I'll need a bit more information from you to diagnose.  I'll need the output from http://<cr_director_ip>:<driver_port>/config and I'll need to know which devices are missing from that output (device type, and the device ID and proxy ID values from Composer, preferably a screenshot of the driver info from Composer for each).  For the GetVariable issue, I'll need to see your homebridge service logs (from all services if you have multiples) that are recording during a time period where that output in the driver happens, as well as the full driver logs.  If you'd like to just send me another email with that, that's good. Mostly put that here in case other folks need help with similar, as I'll need detailed information to track any issues folks might find.  :)

Best,

-Josh

[Amr]

On 6/24/2022 at 3:23 PM, Joshua Pressnell said:

I think you sent me an email on this?  I've just been a little behind on catching up with emails this last week, as it's been one of those weeks.  I'll follow up with your email soon, but I'll need a bit more information from you to diagnose.  I'll need the output from http://<cr_director_ip>:<driver_port>/config and I'll need to know which devices are missing from that output (device type, and the device ID and proxy ID values from Composer, preferably a screenshot of the driver info from Composer for each).  For the GetVariable issue, I'll need to see your homebridge service logs (from all services if you have multiples) that are recording during a time period where that output in the driver happens, as well as the full driver logs.  If you'd like to just send me another email with that, that's good. Mostly put that here in case other folks need help with similar, as I'll need detailed information to track any issues folks might find.  

Best,

-Josh

Hi Josh, we had completely removed the driver, rebooted the controller, re-add it again and it seems everything works fine now, we did refreshed the loads after changes happened with OS3.3 and color wheel, but still removing it entirely fixed it somehow, only one thing cause I use use HomeKit over Docker with my NAS, HB IP should be that of Docker not HB IP of NAS, in all cases it works, the only thing that is not working is Garage Door (2 Relay Configuration), its not detected by your current version of the driver and of course Shades is not supported.

[Joshua Pressnell]

35 minutes ago, Amr said:

Hi Josh, we had completely removed the driver, rebooted the controller, re-add it again and it seems everything works fine now, we did refreshed the loads after changes happened with OS3.3 and color wheel, but still removing it entirely fixed it somehow, only one thing cause I use use HomeKit over Docker with my NAS, HB IP should be that of Docker not HB IP of NAS, in all cases it works, the only thing that is not working is Garage Door (2 Relay Configuration), its not detected by your current version of the driver and of course Shades is not supported.

Amr, that's excellent.  I suspect that what happened is that there were some changes to device IDs in your project at some point and for some reason the system wasn't picking that up.  I'm happy to hear that a basic reset and reconfigure worked out the issues.

The "two relay" garage door driver you're talking about.  That uses one relay to command "closed" and one relay to command "open" right?  HomeKit doesn't support garage doors that don't have a contact sensor to indicate open/closed state.  I've avoided "faking" the contact sensor because it's a safety issue on single-relay garage doors... but I might work out something for two-relay drivers that I could be happy with.  Please send me an email with the specific garage door driver you're using (name, driver file name, version, etc) and I'll take a look at it.

I am now supporting blinds in the latest version of the driver and plugin.  If you update all software to the latest version, blinds should auto-export in the config list.  There may be some issues still, as I've just released past beta, but I'm trying to work those out as people report them to me.

[Amr]

1 hour ago, Joshua Pressnell said:

Amr, that's excellent.  I suspect that what happened is that there were some changes to device IDs in your project at some point and for some reason the system wasn't picking that up.  I'm happy to hear that a basic reset and reconfigure worked out the issues.

The "two relay" garage door driver you're talking about.  That uses one relay to command "closed" and one relay to command "open" right?  HomeKit doesn't support garage doors that don't have a contact sensor to indicate open/closed state.  I've avoided "faking" the contact sensor because it's a safety issue on single-relay garage doors... but I might work out something for two-relay drivers that I could be happy with.  Please send me an email with the specific garage door driver you're using (name, driver file name, version, etc) and I'll take a look at it.

I am now supporting blinds in the latest version of the driver and plugin.  If you update all software to the latest version, blinds should auto-export in the config list.  There may be some issues still, as I've just released past beta, but I'm trying to work those out as people report them to me.

Okay, got the new version, issue for blinds; its see's only one shade not 2 if names are similar like Dinner Left and Dinner Right its sees only Dinner Left and doesn't see the Dinner Right for example! 

[Joshua Pressnell]

2 minutes ago, Amr said:

Okay, got the new version, issue for blinds; its see's only one shade not 2 if names are similar like Dinner Left and Dinner Right its sees only Dinner Left and doesn't see the Dinner Right for example! 

That will be because you have a driver that has a single driver but exposes two separate blinds, is my guess.  Send me an email and we can look at that.

[Amr]

4 minutes ago, Joshua Pressnell said:

That will be because you have a driver that has a single driver but exposes two separate blinds, is my guess.  Send me an email and we can look at that.

I emailed u but these are separate Blinds not the same but it probably clashes or ignoring the full name