- Interested in using voice control and a home automation
system to assist people with disabilities?
Today we're going to help one of my regular viewers
construct a practical solution
to improve his everyday living.
This is also a great setup for those living
in small apartments such as studios and rentals.
So, stay tuned.
(energetic electronic music)
Hi, again.
John Stone the DIY Smart Home Guy.
In a previous video I discussed the need
for a voice assistant in your smart home.
I made mention in that video of how smart home usage
is on the rise to help persons with disabilities
and also people that have accessibility issues.
I recently received a message from Bob asking for help.
Hi, Mr. Snow, and I love the Game of Thrones reference.
- You know nothing, Jon Snow.
- I'm a quadriplegic, I have received an Echo Dot 2,
so I've been looking for online things controlled
by my voice, smart things.
I have two on/off wall switches and a smart TV, Samsung.
I can use a laptop, but that's it.
What do you suggest I use?
So, to help Bob out we're going to discuss a solution
that is both cost effective
and workable for several scenarios
that Bob could face on an everyday basis.
This solution could help anyone that relies on a wheelchair
or faces limited mobility on a daily basis.
If you watched my last video, you'll remember
that I stressed the importance of two things
when putting together a smart home.
One is focusing on the usability of the system
that you create, and the second is having a plan
that considers how the home will be controlled
when and if the automation aspects fail.
When planning home automation it's all about
how the people will access the system, disabled or not.
The primary purpose of the configuration
I'm about to describe is to use
Bob's new Echo Dot to allow him
to control his lights and television,
but what happens if the Echo goes offline?
Bob is going to need to revert to a control mechanism
that isn't solely relying on voice.
Bob also mentioned that he can use a laptop,
so the ideal configuration will allow him
to use his laptop as an alternate form of control.
This can be a big challenge since most hubs
require a smartphone and those that run on a PC
are somewhat complex, and if the internet or hub
goes offline, say for an update or something,
the solution will need to revert to manual control,
which should mimic exactly what he uses today.
Oh yeah, and it also needs to be able to control his TV.
So, let's get into the solution.
The system will consist of the following components.
A Samsung SmartThings Hub 2.0, two GE In-wall smart switches
to control the lighting and the fan,
the Amazon Echo Dot 2 for the overall system control.
You could just as easily use a Google Home
in this setup, but since Bob already
has the Amazon Alexa, we'll go with that in this video.
We'll also be bringing in a Logitech Harmony Hub
to control the TV, and one additional thing
that we'll bring in is not hardware,
but it's actually software, and it's called SmartTiles.
This is a very nice PC interface into the SmartThings Hub.
I selected the SmartThings Hub in this scenario
specifically because of the SmartTiles interface,
and the fact that it will allow Bob
to control his smart home from his laptop.
At this time there really isn't a good alternative
on the Wink upside that allows PC access.
So, if the Amazon Echo Dot does go offline
he can easily revert to controlling
his home from his notebook.
I chose the GE switches specifically because
they operate like a normal switch in terms of use.
Up is on and down is off.
Other switches can be used and, Bob,
you should feel free to substitute a different set
of switches as long as they're compatible
with the SmartThings Hub.
I've left the link to the video that installs
these switches in the description below.
And the first thing to do will be
to get those switches installed.
("Think!" by Merv Griffin)
Now that we have that out of the way,
let's get the switches connected into the hub.
For that, we'll go to the lab and set 'em up.
Okay, so in the lab I've got these switches right here.
We're gonna go ahead and connect those
in the SmartThings app, so you're gonna
have to do this with a smartphone.
This part, there's no way to avoid this,
but you'll need a smartphone to do this initial setup,
and then we'll bring it over to the SmartTiles app.
So, down in the bottom of the screen
you'll see these four little squares.
We're gonna tap on those and this is where
we're gonna go in and add our thing.
So, we're gonna click Add Thing.
It's gonna say looking for devices,
and then it's pretty much as simple
as we're just gonna turn that on,
and it should take just a couple seconds
then it's gonna recognize that device.
If you get worried that it's taking a little bit too long
just turn it off, turn it on, and you should
see that device come straight in.
There it is.
Okay, so, turn that light off so we're not blinding you.
Now, from here, let's just go in
and do the Rename Device real quick
and since this is my lab, we're just gonna say Lab Light.
And we're done.
Save that.
We've successfully paired one device.
And now that lab light is setup in the SmartThings app,
so that's gonna be pretty simple.
Alright, the switches are installed
and connected into the SmartThings hub.
Next, let's get these connected into the Echo.
There's a link to the Amazon Echo setup
in the description below, so no need to do that here.
The only difference between that video and this setup
is that you'll need to connect the SmartThings scale
instead of the Wink scale.
Easy enough, right?
Getting the Echo to recognize the switches
is as simple as saying Alexa, discover devices.
- [Alexa] Starting discovery.
Discovery is complete.
I found 78 smart home devices.
- Now it's time to get this setup in the SmartTiles app.
The application can be found at www.smarttiles.click.
You'll need your SmartThings login to continue here.
Alright, so from the website we're going
to go to install, and then there's the install now.
Now if you would like to get emails from them
you can put your email address in here,
if not, just click go, and then that's
gonna take you to an authorization screen.
Now, there is a login screen in the middle of this,
just enter your username and password
for the SmartThings app, that'll take you
to this authorization screen, and then
we're gonna say Authorize Home, and then we click Authorize.
Okay, now we're going back into the SmartThings app
on the smartphone, and if you see
down in the bottom of the screen here,
you're gonna have this middle button
with the little check mark in the circle
and if you come over to that SmartApps tab
you'll come down there and you'll see SmartTiles Connect.
If that's not there, you're gonna want to add that in.
Use the plus and add that in and it'll bring it.
So, from there you're going to need to create a dashboard.
If you scroll down in the app, you'll have
these five sections here, when you click on that
you can come in here, you can name the dashboard, set it up.
Okay, so to get to this from our computer
there's one last piece that we're gonna have to do.
If we go into that dashboard and we scroll down
to the bottom of the list, you'll see
a View Dashboard and URL, click on that.
And you can either preview or browse
that dashboard to see what that's gonna look like,
so let's take a look at that real quick.
There's my lab light, click that on,
click that off, done with that.
Now, the one that we're gonna want is the Get Launcher URL.
So, by doing that Get Launcher URL
that's gonna give me the URL right there.
Now, you're gonna need to copy this
and send it to yourself over on your laptop
and we'll get that over to the laptop
and then we'll show it on the laptop side.
Okay, so come back over into your browser
and you'll paste in that link that you sent yourself
and you should be faced with this thing that says launch,
and we'll launch into that.
We'll have to authenticate one more time.
And then you have your routines,
your lab light, anything you want over here.
So, I should just be able to click that
and it'll turn on my lab light, and there we go.
So, now SmartTiles is all set up.
Alright, now we have voice control
over the ceiling fan and the light,
backup control via the laptop, and manual reversion
that requires no change in behavior.
Easy enough, right?
Now, the last piece is getting the Logitech Harmony Hub
connected into the system as well.
To me, this is the coolest piece.
I can't even begin to imagine what life is like
with a severe disability, but I can imagine
that channel surfing has got to be a major pain.
Having voice control over the TV will be liberating.
For setup there are two options.
You can use a smartphone or you can use the PC/laptop.
To help Bob out, we're going to use the laptop setup.
Okay, so the first thing you're gonna do
is you're gonna go over
to the MyHarmony webpage, myharmony.com/hub.
Okay, so once we're on this page
we're gonna wanna scroll all the way
to the bottom of this page until we get past
all of the mobile device apps and we're gonna go
to the very bottom and do download.
And we have the Harmony Hub, so we're just
gonna do the Harmony Hub software,
and then download the software
and that should get it on your desktop, alright?
Okay, we're just gonna let this load up,
get the welcome to the MyHarmony.
Now, once you have this on your desktop
you're gonna need to create an account.
I already have an account so we're gonna skip over that,
but it's not that difficult to do.
Typical stuff, you're gonna need
an email address and a password.
So, at this point you're gonna wanna
plug the USB cable into the Harmony Hub
and then plug that into your laptop
and you'll need to add this device.
Once the device is added then you're just gonna come in here
and you'll set up your devices.
Now, this is where you're going to set up your TV,
you're gonna click on this Add Device, add your TV in.
After you get your television set up,
go over to the activities tab,
and this is where you can program in different activities.
Alright, last but not least, you're gonna want
to come in here and select a TV service provider.
Now, if you're on cable, or whether your off-air,
you're just gonna put in your zip code,
and you're gonna set up your service provider information,
and then after that you're going
to edit your favorite channels.
Now, these channels here, it's important
that you set these up.
Whatever you put the star next to,
this is what's going to be available inside your Echo.
Okay, so you've set up the Harmony,
you've added in your devices, and then
you've added in your favorite channels.
The next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go over
to the Alexa app, and that's where we're gonna
add in the skills and we're almost done.
Once you have that all set up, get the Alexa skills,
both of them, there's two skills
for the Logitech Harmony Hub.
One for smart home integration
and one for general TV control.
Alright, so the next thing we're going to do
is we're going to go into the Alexa app
and we're going to get two different skills,
both of them are for the Harmony Hub.
So, let's go in and do that right now.
In the Alexa app you're gonna do Skills,
now under Skills, you're gonna want to search for Harmony.
And you're gonna see these two skills right here.
One of them is optimized for smart home
and the other is just the regular Logitech Harmony skill.
Let's go ahead and add both of those in.
So, I already have them enabled,
but you're gonna want the blue one
and you're going to want the red one.
Now, when you go into your Smart Home
on the Amazon Echo, you're only gonna see
one of those skills enabled, and that'll be the blue skill.
This is gonna allow you to bypass anything
like saying "Alexa, tell Harmony".
You can just go straight in and say
"Alexa, turn television on."
We're gonna go do that in just a minute,
but I just wanted to come down here
and show you what's happening here.
You'll see that you've got a bunch
of new commands down here like TV, HBO,
where you see these HBO, Cable News, Syfy,
Food Network, Home and Garden, History Channel, HBO 2.
All of those are the favorite channels
that we set up over there in the Harmony Hub app
and that's what linked them over here,
so in just a second we're gonna go down
and we're gonna run a few test commands
and then we'll be wrapping this up.
After you get these set up, run Discover Devices once again.
Okay, so the last thing I wanna do is talk about
what the difference is between
the blue app and the red app here.
So, the blue app, this is the smart home app,
what this is going to allow you
to do is use those trigger words.
You see the trigger words in the smart home section
of the Alexa app, then you can use that as a trigger word.
So, you could do anything like say turn on the TV,
turn off the TV, or you can just simply say
"Alexa, turn on Home and Garden.", and it'll turn on
that favorite channel from Home and Garden.
But you also have extended activities
that you can do here and this is through the other,
the red app that we installed, or the red skill
that we installed, and this is where you can say
"Alexa, tell Harmony to pause.",
"Tell Harmony volume up.", "Tell Harmony volume down."
But you have additional skills here that you have,
but you have to use the Tell Harmony command to do this.
But anything you see over on that smart home list,
that you can go straight into and you do not have
to say "Tell Harmony", so that's pretty cool.
Okay, so as you can see, we have that Harmony Hub sitting
down on the bottom of the end table between the two couches,
and that is, with everything we have connected together,
going to allow me to just
use simple commands to turn the TV on.
Alexa, turn on Home and Garden.
- [Alexa] Okay.
- Now, you can see right here we've got
the little white light coming on, this is gonna take
just a couple seconds for the TV to fire up,
but you see the TV starting to come on
and this is actually going to change the channel directly
to Home and Garden Television.
Alexa, tell Harmony to mute television.
- [Alexa] Okay.
- So, that time we used the Tell Harmony command,
but you can see that it muted the television.
Alexa, tell Harmony channel up.
- [Alexa] Okay.
- So, we can either use the favorite channels
that we've pre-programmed or we can use channel up,
channel down, this makes channel surfing a breeze.
Alexa, tell Harmony to unmute the TV.
- [Alexa] Okay.
- And there you go.
So now we have full control through voice, Alexa,
using the Harmony Hub, and we've
got full control over the television.
Alexa, turn television off.
- [Alexa] Okay.
- There you have it.
Home automation with voice control
is a huge step forward for those
in assisted living situations.
When properly implemented, smart home tech
is a great way to improve quality of life for everyone
and it can be installed for a relatively low cost
and that's pretty cool, but you've gotta admit
this is a cool set up even if you're not disabled.
Thanks for watching, don't forget to subscribe
and don't forget to click Like.
Over here are a couple of other videos that you might enjoy.
For more reviews, tips, and DIY videos
visit azhb.com, and thanks to all of you
that already follow me over on Facebook or Twitter,
both are @DIYSmartHomeGUy.
Until next time, cheers.
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