Google Assistant integration ?

[Sungray]

Hi,

I noticed in the parameters of Google Assistant a "House related commands" section. You can add rooms, and devices from many brands nest, hue, samsung, gigaset, netatmo, tp-link, eedomus, amongst many others). I wasn't really surprised not to see Loxone in the list, but I was still disappointed.

Google Assistant has an open API. Loxone really could dive into this. I mean, they really should. This is not the future anymore, this is today. Smart homes must be connected to those widely used assistants. Every brand is getting connected together through those open APIs. I cannot fathom why they would not want to jump in. This also offers huge visibility to potential customers, as Loxone would be displayed in every Google Assistant phone automatically.

Has anyone got any information about their plans regarding this ?

Is there an easy-ish and portable from phone to phone way to achieve similar results ?

[Bayden]

Yep, started a similar topic when they first announced Google home. There's shoehorned workarounds using tasker as a middleman, but direct integration would be a dream

[David]

Fully agree

[Sungray]

Response from Loxone :

**************************

Hi,

We are definitely watching this, only the added value in an automated home is very limited. What added value do you see in this collaboration?

-----------------

Hi,

I really don't think the added value would be limited. It would be huge for a big part of the Loxone users.

I would love to be able to ask my phone OK google - lights on in the living room. Or OK google - good night. It would be very much faster than to pick up my phone, launch the Loxone app, find the correct room and select the correct mood.

The added value of voice is the simplicity of use, the everyday easiness. When I'm in my car and arriving to my home, it's a hassle to pick up my phone and scan the NFC while parking to open my garage. Voice would be absolutely perfect for this - OK google, open the garage. It would be a huge plus in my opinion and for many other people I chatted with. Connecting Loxone to those huge partners would also bring a lot of attention from the public.

Also I would love to see widgets in the Android app. The scope is more limited but would still be very useful in some specific usecases.

Regards

-----------------

Hi,

We are convinced that more automation is the right way, for example i don't need my voice for opening my car, why would this be the solution for a home, also we must be careful and see whether it's not too difficult for older people.

Another way to control your home is not immediately a big added value for us.

The question of voice control is being asked regularly, but if they have visited our Demo home, we ask them what actions they still want to do that way, the conclusion is then that it's a nice to have function.

**************************

Soo basically they don't want to do it because they don't need voice to get into their cars and it would be complicated for older people.

[Clegger]

I suspect they already have a full schedule of things they want to do, and this would just be an additional cost/distraction.

Personally I wouldn't use this of they provided it, but that's because I'm wary about letting Google any further into my life. I can see why it would be a huge draw for many though. The sheer number of ecosystems that are starting to integrate with Google suggests as much.

[David]

This will become a key checkpoint on purchase decisions over time. If Loxone don't have voice integration at some level then they will loose out.

On Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:07:08 UTC+1, Sungray wrote:

[Sungray]

I don't know about their schedule, but they just created a "revolutionary" LED Pendulum, which is an RGB luminaire. This makes me doubt their priorities. That kind of device will lead them nowhere in my opinion. And I hate when corps label everything they create as "revolutionary". It just feels like a cry for attention.

[Anders Windsor]

Their answer makes little sense, old people doesn't have to use the integration with google assistant or similar (nor do have to use it to "open your car"), while voice commands are a little overrated IMHO, loxone is gradually moving in the wrong direction. I have stopped recommending it to people who ask a while ago.

[Pawel Pieczul]

I kind of agree and disagree with their position. I think it is a must have feature because almost everyone wants to use voice to control their home. Whether they will use it is a different question. I integrated my Loxone with Alexa but rarely I make use of it. But I would choose a product with the integration over that without. So Loxone may have no chance to prove they are right to their customers because there will be no customers.
Regardless I don’t like the tone of their responses. You as a customer are always right. They should sit someone down and prepare an instruction how to use a 3rd party solution and offer it, not explain that you are wrong in your needs. This is just not appropriate for a company that wants to sell things to you.

[Rob Lynes]

I am in the same position, used Voixor or whatever its called, great novelty for a few days, its not been used since, in some ways it goes against the whole Loxone "your data is yours and isn't stored anywhere else" I also felt slightly uncomfortable giving an external site my login and password for the mini-server, doesn't make good security sense does it.

[Bayden]

I dont need voice for opening my car either, in the same way I wouldn't necessarily need voice for opening my front door to enter my house

however, when both hands are on the steering wheel, being able to say"send a text to my wife saying i will be late" and have that execute, is the kind of functionality systems like google assistant can enable

in HA that translates to being able to say "open the front gate" when your hands are covered in flour, or when youre lying comfortably on the sofa

if youve integrated echo or home with any HA system, it soon becomes pretty obvious that ubiquitous voice interfacing is going to be a big deal. we are only really at the first gen

[Keith Emerson]

Hi,

I've been using Voxior (with Alexa and Loxone) for a while now and although not used all the time I find it convenient. If I'm at the computer and a distance from a touch switch its handy to be able to close the blinds or change the lighting. I also have it tied into my AV system so its handy to switch on the LG TV by voice. The voice commands can be lengthy and easy to get wrong but by keeping the number of voice commands down to those regularly used this can be improved. Overall I find voice control a useful addition and now rarely use the tablet interface. 

On Tuesday, 10 October 2017 16:07:08 UTC+1, Sungray wrote:

[Sungray]

I went back to IFTTT. They have a Google Assistant service. It's extremely easy to setup a Google Assistant command, calling a webhook to Loxone. Check the webhooks here for examples : https://www.loxone.com/enen/kb/web-services/

So now I can configure basic commands without too much hassle.

Le mardi 10 octobre 2017 17:07:08 UTC+2, Sungray a écrit :

[Rok Prevolsek]

Hey Guys!

I am from Voxior and I don't know if you have noticed but we have just announced Google Home integration for Loxone Miniserver.

As we are waiting for the certification process to finish on Google's side, the integration is currently in beta phase. I would encourage you to join in as we are getting really good feedback from our beta testers. Apply for the beta by submitting the form at the following URL: http://eepurl.com/c8jiKf

In any case, I would encourage you all to pursue with the Google Home assistant. We have been testing it in our office for the past three months and we have to say it is much more efficient in comparison to Alexa. It will take some time for Google to catch up on Amazon's service side of the product (application) but with their current infrastructure in place, we are comfortable this will happen sooner or later.

I would also like to point out the following: cloud is the future of connected things and if you are worried about the security, read the terms of service of the Facebook application on your smart phone, you will come to figure out Voice Assistant is not required for those companies to be able to listen to you ;)

Have a great day guys and keep up the good work of transforming tomorrow into today! :) 

[Flow Motics]

You are right. IFTTT is doing it without any hassle....

Op vrijdag 27 oktober 2017 15:38:58 UTC+2 schreef Sungray:

[Sushil Singh]

Is anyone working on an app for Loxon on google assistant (Google home)?

I can work with folks if they are already working on this or we can start a new thread to develop an app.

-Sushil

[Rok Prevolsek]

Hey Guys,

We are happy to announce that Google Home integration is certified and is officially launched today! [www.voxior.com]

With the new integration, also come some new features:

• Querying (e.g. Hey Google, what is the temperature in the bedroom?)

• Works with Google Assistant (Integration can be used with most modern Android phones and tablets)

• Assistant agnostic (Voxior users can now use both Alexa and Google Home at the same time to control their home - soon with Siri as well)

No doubt that Google is bringing some fresh wind to to the Voice Assistant industry. Expect that the Google Home eco-system will grow rapidly in the upcoming coming months. We are happy to be one of the first and are inviting you to join us in this exciting times.

We have also extended the Alexa functionality so users can now query the temperature, use Routines to create custom voice commands like “Alexa, good night”and use Alexa mobile app for the control of your smart home.

Now might be the perfect timing to onboard Voice Control - as we are at the same time discounting our 3-year license by 50% with the Christmas promotion.

Voxior Team

[Sungray]

Just an update, a few months ago I ended up installing an OpenHAB instance on a Raspi, making a bridge to Loxone, and adding OpenHAB in Google Assistant. It works perfectly, although the setup is not really easy.

But it's been running for months without a single intervention from me, which is great. It's also blazing fast, the response is immediate - the light is turned on/off before Google Assistant can even respond vocally.

Le mardi 10 octobre 2017 17:07:08 UTC+2, Sungray a écrit :

[Joakim Arfvidsson]

Sungray, when you say "making a bridge to Loxone", do you mean painstakingly employing HTTP commands to the miniserver? Or was there something better, that used the existing config from Loxone?

I'm currently on the Voxior integration with Google Assistant. It works ok. Some major problems:

- Speed. Commands take upwards of 10 seconds.

- Config. You have to tweak some things on the Voxior side if you want to get names just right, and maybe on Google Assistant side too.

[Sungray]

Fortunately no you don't have to do this yourself, there's an automatic binding process, OpenHAB does the job for you.

https://www.openhab.org/addons/bindings/loxone/

Using this as I said I got amazing response time, and no naming problems, I have configured the rooms in Google Assistant and assigned the lights to the rooms.

[Tico]

@Sungray,

I'm also curious to try out the OpenHAB option. I'm currently using Voxior as well and the latency between command to response frustrates me.

You mentioned 'setup is not really easy'. Can you recommend any guides or resources to avoid the pitfalls you encountered?

@Joakim - I've used 'Shortcuts' within the Google Home setiings. It's been helpful for limitations like saying 'Turn on the blinds'. Instead a simple shortcut is setup:

'When I say Close Blind 1', the Google Assistant should...'Turn on blind 1'.

'When I say Close the Blinds', the Google Assistant should...'Turn on the Blinds'. (Central Blinds module renamed 'Blinds' in Voxior).

Oh...and 'Shortcuts' have recently been renamed 'Routines' in Google Assistant Settings.

[Sungray]

Well it's the OpenHAB - Loxone binding that's a bit annoying, you don't have a clear interface to do this. Basically the binding process will give you a list of ALL the Loxone outputs, and you have to select the correct ones you want to use in a dropdown list, without mistake or you have to start over. It's not complicated but you will probably have to start over once or twice, and using a Raspi the OpenHAB interface is slow. Maybe the process has been improved since I did this a few months ago.

I wasn't able to configure the blinds and the dimming lights though, but it's probably doable, I just didn't take the time to look into it. It's probably similar to Voxior.

Le mercredi 29 août 2018 03:58:45 UTC+2, Tico a écrit :

@Sungray,

I'm also curious to try out the OpenHAB option. I'm currently using Voxior as well and the latency between command to response frustrates me.

You mentioned 'setup is not really easy'. Can you recommend any guides or resources to avoid the pitfalls you encountered?

@Joakim - I've used 'Shortcuts' within the Google Home setiings. It's been helpful to work-around limtations like saying 'Turn on the blinds'. Instead a simple shortcut is setup:

[Gregor Rebolj]

Dear Sungray and Tico,

I am the founder of Voxior and I thank you for your feedback.

Could you please contact Voxior support (email or chat) regarding the Voxior latency issue?

Across all our users we see a sub 1s delay. We did notice some commands which take longer but were not aware that this is an issue specific to certain users.

We would like to look into this issue closer and it would really help us identify the problem.

Voxior automatically detects all the devices so the users don’t need to spend any time on setting up bindings.

@stingray: It would be great to get your feedback on the tweaking you mentioned. Our goal is to have a really easy and are interested in your suggestions.

Our Google Home support for blinds now also includes the up/down or hoch/runter commands (without manual shortcut process) for blinds which is also a unique feature.

Gregor Rebolj, CEO and Founder, Voxior Inc.

Voxior - Voice control for KNX and Loxone Smart Homes

5 min setup without any additional hardware required - Start your free 7-day trial by logging into Voxior

[Sungray]

Dear Gregor,

As I was saying, I'm using OpenHAB, not Voxior. The main reason behind this is I don't want to pay for this kind of service, it should be done either by Loxone for free (how it should be) or by the community in an opensource project (how it actually is).

Also, I want as few cloud based component as possible, which is one of the big plusses of Loxone, OpenHAB also runs on a raspi locally. I think you can run Voxior locally too, but it costs a lot.

Lastly, I don't want to trust an external service with control over my house.

Also I think Voxior and OpenHAB setup processes are quite similar, and since both solutions work well (except for Voxior's latency ?), I'd rather go with the opensource, free project.

Hope this helps

Regards

[Gregor Rebolj]

@Sungray: You are right. Sorry. My mistake.

I meant to ask Joakim to contact support.

Tico I remember. He is from Australia and most of the latency is due to distance to our servers located in Germany.

But we will look into that again and see whether we can do anything about that.

@Joakim: Please contact our support so we can look into your issue with latency.

thank you in advance for your help

Gregor Rebolj, CEO and Founder, Voxior Inc.

Voxior - Voice control for KNX and Loxone Smart Homes

5 min setup without any additional hardware required - Start your free 7-day trial by logging into Voxior

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[OnWaVo]

I also have the openhabian software running on my pi.

Setup was not that difficult and i do not have eperience with linux code.

The binding with loxone was also easy after i found a way to use the unlimited java extension. (If you have the same error, just google it and my forum post will pop up with the solution)

It is possible for me to turn on my lights with google assistant.
The proces to this point is almost automatic.

Somethings that i can not figure out:

- it seems that he takes automatically my lighting blocks if configured as switch. But how do i configure my switch block for my door?

- how to configure dimming, blinds

- how to deselect items so they dont show up in google home?

[Tico]

 "just google it and my forum post will pop up with the solution".

Can you be a bit more specific or provide the link?

[OnWaVo]

Off course.

The problem i had with the openhab binding with loxone was the following:

https://community.openhab.org/t/loxone-binding-internal-error-enable-java-cryptography-unlimited-strength-see-binding-doc/49266/3

[OnWaVo]

I found some easy to use program so you can edit the tags of your items.

It is pretty strate forward with this program. I can now edit my tags of all my items.

You can tag or untag items. With the tag it shows up in the google home app.

Here is the program => https://community.openhab.org/t/tag-control-for-put-and-delete-tags-in-items-most-simple-and-quick-way/43035

A lot of usefull info shows up in here => https://community.openhab.org/t/official-google-assistant-integration-for-openhab/40425

Hope it helps

Op donderdag 30 augustus 2018 06:37:52 UTC+2 schreef OnWaVo:

[Jatin Shah]

Like Sungray, I have had an openhab instance running on a raspberry pie since July with no issues. This is integrated to Google assistant. Due to the number of light circuits we have in each room, it's proven very very useful. We started with the mini in the kitchen (about 6 circuits) . We hardly touch the switch. Instead my wife uses the lights she needs ie, cooking lights on, breakfast bar lights on. We then started asking what lights are on in the house etc. Problem is this part needs to be enhanced as all the moods are exposed as well. Now that we have the hub I want to try and get the lights and the temperature for each room displayed as well as executing commands to the music server (although that's a whole new ball game). The mini has moved upstairs to control master lights and the cinema room TV will control the living room lights (about 8 circuits) .

[Bayden]

I've written some note on how to connect loxone to Google assistant using openhab as a gateway:

https://www.reddit.com/r/loxone/comments/a2w2r1

It works really well, I'm using an old atom thin client and uptime has been solid

You can also add the Chromecast binding to openhab and use it to play sound or speak to Google home with loxone input ... Useful for doorbell setup

[Aaron]

Just to say thank you to Bayden for your instructions. I tried this yesterday and after fighting with my own limited understanding of Linux, got it working eventually.

As others have mentioned, it works really nicely. I'm using openHabian on an original raspberryPi with little latency despite being on an appalling broadband connection.

My only fear is that installation of openHabian is a Pandora's box of other integration options!