Integration for Home Automation

I’d love to have integration with Wink or SmartThings to create appropriate robots.

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Same request but with a more open api, for integration into something like Home-Assistant.io or openhab

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Yes, I definitely second this request. IFTTT already gives you one way into SmartThings, but having a direct integration with SmartThings would make it a much easier.

I’m a Zero Energy homebuilder and we’re trying to include technology with our homes that is extremely easy to use, which is why we include SmartThings with every home. If it’s not easy then most homeowners will never use it! It’s also why we’re interested in Sense. I can tell you firsthand that the average Joe isn’t going to want to, or know how to, setup IFTTT as the middle-man.

Also, if you truly want to expand the usefulness of energy data and monitoring to the masses, then it should not only be able to connect directly and easily to SmartThings, but also have controls that allow Sense to automatically send commands to SmartThings “behind the scenes” so the homeowner doesn’t even have to think about it to save energy. Of course, you’d want some safeguards built-in so that it doesn’t start turning lights on/off without the homeowner’s permission, but you get the idea.

Imagine if you could tell Sense during setup what your utility rates are so that its AI can come up with suggested alterations to the homeowner’s routine and by simply tapping “Yes” to a suggested change Sense would send the command to SmartThings to make the change for them automatically. The new Alexa integration is a great first step in this direction by allowing the homeowner to query real-time energy use and then follow that up with a command to turn off lights, turn down the thermostat, etc., but at the end of the day the vast majority of homeowners won’t care to even query Alexa about their energy use in the first place. Having the system monitor it for you and then prompt you with suggested energy-use behavior changes and allowing the homeowner to make the change with the simple press of a “Yes” button is what the end-game should look like! That’s the home of the future I imagine being possible for the masses.

PS - I have model homes with all of this tech and would be happy to be a beta tester for a direct Sense-to-SmartThings integration. I can also help with suggesting how to connect them as I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a few years now.

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Yes, Samsung Smartthings integration would be amazing. I could easily setup something that would trigger a red light in the house when it has detected that the dryer has been off for more than 10 minutes, and then have the light turned back to normal when I open the door to the laundry room. (We’re both terrible about forgetting the laundry in the dryer.)

As mentioned before, this is technically possible with IFTTT as a middle man already, but it’s another point of failure and I hate having to use IFTTT as a middle man. :smiley:

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For integrations with SmartThings, Alexa, Home-Assistant.io OpenHab, maybe Vera or Home Seer, etc then for any modules that go on the smart home hub it would be good to have them as open source on GIT Hub with a permissive licence. What can happen then is if someone sees how to create the SmartThings module they can use this as a working guide to create a module for Vera or Google Home or whatever their preferred smart hub is.

I see the code within Sense as being the valuable IP and suitable to be closed source, but the code outside of Sense as being suitable for open source as a means to grow more quickly.

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Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Be sure to “like” the original post to ‘+1’ the feature request so we can easily see how many Sense users want a specific feature.

1 Like

I would definitely appreciate OpenHAB integration, as I’m using it as the hub of my smart home at the moment. Even without a full OpenHAB plugin (called a binding), an open API for Sense would enable a lot of cool integration.

This is the approach I’ve taken with Sensibo, the smart AC controller, (see their API and my OpenHAB code) and it’s working well so far.

I’d also vote up Home Assistant. I’m on SmartThings now, but looking to switch over. I see that Neurio has a Home Assistant integration: Neurio energy - Home Assistant :wink:

It’d be nice to not only have energy usage sensors, but energy production sensors as well. Sense integration would tip the scales for me to convert to Home Assistant, no question.

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Second this request… ideally a READONLY API for my account data would be ideal to enable community solutions.

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I would also put my vote in for this enhancement. If Sense and Smarthings had some integration it would significantly help Sense learn our devices.

As an example, If you turned a light on with Smarthings and Sense knew the light was on I got to believe this would be beneficial for the learning or some yet to be defined training process in many ways.

Just an example in addition to the great use cases mentioned above.

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Just adding my voice / input to this request. Would love SmartThings integration, and also, as noted above, would welcome / encourage an “open API” with OAuth delegation.

I totally understand and appreciate the security and privacy implications of this request, and by no means believe this to be a trivial task. On that note - one specific (nuanced) request would be to ask that the API be authenticated with some ‘constrained’ credentials - e.g. API key / token, etc. Specifically, something LESS privileged than the same credentials the user leverages to access the mobile app or website.

Just got my device installed a few days ago: Let the learning begin!

Peace,
Billy

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IMO, a free and Open API is a MUST. Using IFTT or the like is not real automation and definitely not an acceptable solution for anyone serious, those ‘services’ are just toys

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I’ll add my :+1:t3: too…isn’t this also a good way to help device detection? I’d also love to see better / more robust device detection.

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+1 Smarthings integration would enable an array of options.

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I vote for Wink. It continues to improve and increase its coverage.

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I agree. Wink is the leader by far.

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I’ve been using Iris by Lowes for three years now and have two homes automated with over 70 devices (lights, switches, plugs, water valves, motion/temp/leak/smoke/co detectors, thermostats, door bolts, cameras etc.) linked to the Iris app and web interface. Integration would clearly reduce any device ID ambiguities that Sense has and allow for better fault detection and more robust IFTTT rules.

Any comments or thoughts here on upcoming Home Automation integrations?

This is the only future proof methodology.

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@purplenurplepuppy, Sense is working on some integrations with other smart home devices. I don’t have a specific timeline for the next integration release at the moment, but definitely expect more integrations this year.

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