How important is Velbus to Google Home/Amazon Echo to you?

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1

How important is Velbus to Google Home/Amazon Echo to you ?

  • Very
  • Not Important at All.

0 voters

It seems the revolution is here, with the likes of the amazon echoe and google home devices, voice control of smart home devices is about to go mainstream, with current out of the box support for samsung smart things etc.

What if any plans are there to integrate/inerface velbus to google home/amazon echoe devices ?

2

With IFTTT you can already set up links for Google Assistant (on Google Pixel), so that I can say ‘lights out in X’, and that is then sent to IFTTT, which then you can do whatever you want with it.

Key interface here is Velbus to TCP, having a decent library to communicate with it.

3

[quote=“CSharpFan”]With IFTTT you can already set up links for Google Assistant (on Google Pixel), so that I can say ‘lights out in X’, and that is then sent to IFTTT, which then you can do whatever you want with it.

Key interface here is Velbus to TCP, having a decent library to communicate with it.[/quote]

Yep, bit we really need to get some officially released and reasonably priced interface to allow this happen.

It’s quite possible that if this doesn’t come about, the Velbus will quickly fall behind.

See below, this is where we need to be.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=JPH74ZHDuCI

4

It is important, but HomeKit integration is even more so.

5

Phillips hue, smart things, nest, wemo all compatible with Google Home and amazing out of the box.

There is a serious chance that these will outstrip existing ha technologies unless there is an effort to provide support for these devices in a reasonable way.

In danger of falling behind quickly here I think velleman

6

Well,

A bit of an update, in that I have now got full control of my velbus system via google home. Its done using a combination of devices as follows

  1. My main logic controller for velbus is my cytech comfort alarm system, which has a full logic controller built in and an interface into velbus (and lots of other systems). Its been that way for a long time, and I have remote access via smartphone app, and my alarm sensors also control my lights at sunset etc.
  2. I also have a smart things hub, and a hue hub.
  3. A smartthings emulator on a rasperry pi, basically takes all of my comfort alarm panel components (eg, alarm status, inputs, motion sensors, door sensors, and all of my velbus lights), and emulates them as smart things devices.
  4. Once I have everything, including velbus emulated as smartthings devices, then I have full integration into google home/google assistant.

It works fantastic, and brings my home automation into an entirely different level, making it a truly smart home, where I can now integrate geolocation etc in addition to full reliable voice control into my system.

Its a round about way of doing it, and while technically I am reasonably competent, I am poor when it comes to coding etc, so I just found using open source solutions quite a challenge.

I genuinely beleive that velbus needs to have some form of officially supported interface to google assitant, siri, amazon echoe devices, as really, only hobbyists can currently put the time and effort into making it work.

I may be wrong on this, but I get the impression velbus is going by the wayside, and is no longer being pushed/developed by vellman ?

The lack of an official solution to integrate velbus with AI assistants such as google, amazon echoe and siri I think is a major flaw in velbus now. Also, this forum has actually dissapeared from the main velbus web page, although maybe thats just a bug/ommission ?

1 Like
7

Velbus is very much being actively developed :), the R&D team has actually been expanded recently and several new modules and projects are being developed, including a solution for integrating/communicating with various other protocols. Concerning the latter, no dates are known at this moment when this will be available to the public, but there’s steady progress and a lot of work being done.

(Concerning the forum, there’s a link at the bottom of the sidebar, to the right of every Velbus webpage, including the homepage.)

1 Like
8

Hi,

Thats great news, so if I understand correctly there work ongoing to release a velbus supported interface to google assistant/amazon echoe devices?

I appreciate no specific timelines might be available, but knowing that it is on the horizon is good, it has been a real concern that the system might fall behind, and its difficult to recommend the product to people without knowing that there was going to be support for these features.

9

I just purchased an Amazon Echo (Alexa) and was wondering when you plan to release a skill that can interface between Alexa and my velbus installation?

10

Our server/IoT gateway module is now being developed and should be available by the end of 2018 or beginning of 2019. One of its main functions will be connecting several protocols, eg. Alexa and Velbus.
See also this thread: Velbus server.

1 Like
11

Hi

For anyone with a Cytech Comfort alarm panel, you might be interested in an email I’ve just been sent.

Please report your experience back to the Cytech team so that they can make their system even better.

we have a new beta firmware for the UCM/Velbus

See http://www.comfortforums.com/forum88/5024.html

I am asking for existing users to try out the firmware.

The main change is we use a configuration text file to define the name, Velbus id and properties of devices so we can add new models as they become available. This will allow the new models that have not been supported to be used in the interface

As we do not have access to most of the velbus modules, we would rely on the users to help test

Further enhancements will depend on the demand