Virtual or dummy Homekit switches and automation

macOS
1

In Episode 66, there’s a discussion of using virtual switches in Homebridge for automation and I would love to learn more about how I could use this. Would anyone who’s using this care to share an example of how the switch triggers an automation or works with an automation?

2 Likes
2

Here’s one thing I use them for.

I’m have a Plex server on my lowly Raspberry Pi. It has enough power on it to stream 4K media.

But, it sometimes just hangs during the day and won’t stream anything. So I scheduled it to reboot regularly (every 8 hours) and that worked well.

Of course I did’t want it to reboot while streaming so I made a dummy switch called “KeepAlive”. I changed my reboot script to check the switch’s value before doing a reboot.

I could manually turn on the switch before I stream anything but we’re automators. We don’t do that. So, now I have an automation on my Home Assistant instance that turns on the switch when something starts playing and turns it off when it’s idle for 30 mins.

1 Like
3

What are you using the for scripting? Applescript? Shell script? Keyboard Maestro?

4

I use a shell script for the reboot script. Here are a few more details of the setup.

Homebridge

  • http-webhooks plugin for the dummy switches
  • Dummy switch named KeepAlive_hostname where hostname is the name of the computer I want to not reboot. E.g. KeepAlive_plex
Config 
{
  "platforms": [
     {
       "platform": "HttpWebHooks",
       "webhook_port": "51829",
       "switches": [
          {
            "id": "KeepAlive_plex",
            "name": "KeepAlive Plex"
          }
       ]
     }
   ]
}

Plex Server

  • cron job to run a reboot script every 8 hours.
reboot.sh 
#!/bin/bash

logfile=$HOME/cron/cron.log

keepalive=$(/usr/bin/curl -s http://homebridge-server:51829/?accessoryId=KeepAlive_$(hostname) | /usr/bin/jq -r '.state')
time=$(date "+%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S")

if [ "$keepalive" != "true" ]; then
  echo "$time reboot.sh keepalive is off. rebooting" >> $HOME/cron/cron.log
  sudo /sbin/reboot
fi

Home Assistant

configuration.yaml 
# configuration.yaml
rest_command:
    keepalive_plex_on:
        url: "http://homebridge-server:51829/?accessoryId=KeepAlive_plex&state=true"
        method: GET
    keepalive_plex_off:
        url: "http://homebridge-server:51829/?accessoryId=KeepAlive_plex&state=false"
        method: GET

automation: !include automations.yaml
automations.yaml 
# automations.yaml
plex_is_playing:
  - alias: Plex is playing
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity_id: media_player.plex_plex_for_apple_tv_apple_tv
      to: "playing"
    action:
      service: rest_command.keepalive_plex_on

plex_is_idle:
  - alias: Plex is idle for 30m
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity_id: media_player.plex_plex_for_apple_tv_apple_tv
      to: "idle"
      for: "00:30:00"
    action:
      service: rest_command.keepalive_plex_off

plex_is_unavailable:
  - alias: Plex is unavailable
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity_id: media_player.plex_plex_for_apple_tv_apple_tv
      to: "unavailable"
    action:
      service: rest_command.keepalive_plex_off
1 Like
5

Using HOOBS I did this so family know if I am home. You can do this for other family members.

Image
Image923×1268 142 KB

1 Like