Can't Siri control HomeKit scenes?

[ra4oasis]

I made a scene called "Living Room Lights", which includes one Hue bulb, and one light plugged into a Kookgeek outlet. I can turn on the two things at once by touching the scene in the Home app, but Siri can't seem to turn them both on or off. What gives?

 

[chuyn]

In the case of your screenshot, Siri explains the problem. You can't ask her to turn off a scene. Say I have a scene called "evening tv". I can turn it on by saying "set evening tv", or "turn on evening tv". But I can't turn it off by asking "turn off evening tv". You can only ask Siri to turn on some other scene (like "purple lights" or whatever). This example scene of mine happens to be in my living room. To turn it off, I can say "hey siri, turn off the living room lights" because these lights are set in the living room according to my HomeKit settings. Or you could say "turn off all the lights" to turn off all of your HomeKit lights (if that's what you want to do).

Are the two lights of yours set in the "default room"? Or are they assigned to a "living room"? If they are assigned to a living room, you should consider changing the name of the scene. HomeKit doesn't really jive when an item and room share the same name (I had this issue when I had an ecobee sensor named "living room" as well as a room called "living room". Siri would return an error when I asked for that sensor's temperature. It could have issues with scenes too because asking "turn on the living room lights" is a way of asking Siri to turn on all the lights assigned to your living room. It could get confused about turning on all your lights in your living room or activating that scene you named "living room"

 

[BinhM3]

I made a scene called "Living Room Lights", which includes one Hue bulb, and one light plugged into a Kookgeek outlet. I can turn on the two things at once by touching the scene in the Home app, but Siri can't seem to turn them both on or off. What gives?

1. First Delete that scene you will not need it.
2. Download the idevices app
3. Launch the idevices app and go into settings and scroll down and tap on "Groups"
4. Within the group select your devices you want to control
5. Then name it "Living Room Lights" (this is NOT a scene)
6. Now you can tell Siri to "Turn ON" or Turn Off" the "Living Room Lights"

 

[BrettStah]

1. First Delete that scene you will not need it.
2. Download the idevices app
3. Launch the idevices app and go into settings and scroll down and tap on "Groups"
4. Within the group select your devices you want to control
5. Then name it "Living Room Lights" (this is NOT a scene)
6. Now you can tell Siri to "Turn ON" or Turn Off" the "Living Room Lights"

While that undoubtedly works, you no longer need to use a third party app to group things. The Home app has it built-in now. Just long press on one of the lights, and then you should see anoption named "Group with other Accessories". Once you choose that, you can name the group and choose the other lights.

 

[BrettStah]

While that undoubtedly works, you no longer need to use a third party app to group things. The Home app has it built-in now. Just long press on one of the lights, and then you should see anoption named "Group with other Accessories". Once you choose that, you can name the group and choose the other lights.

To clarify what seems to happen with the the above steps (and I haven't done this very often, so it could be wrong, I admit) - when you group accessories together using the Home app and name it (e.g., "Living Room Lights"), the Home app automatically creates two scenes (e.g., "Living Room Lights On" and "Living Room Lights Off") with the selected accessories. Then Siri will be able to turn those accessories on or off with one command.

 

[cynics]

Scenes are only activated whether it be function of turning things on OR off. Ignore how it works in the app.

For example my "Good Morning" scene turns ON my bathroom, kitchen and bedroom lights. So I can't say "turn off Good Morning" because good morning turns ON things.

So if you said "Hey Siri living room lights" it should activate the scene you made. If you say it again, nothing will change because its an on function.

You could make another scene that turns off the living room likes but that is getting a little silly.

You want to group your living room lights and call the group living room lights. That way when you say "Turn on living room lights" all the devices act as one device. Call individual items something else like living room lamp, living room reading lamp, living room ceiling light, etc etc. That way if you wanted to bring on an individual light you can still do so.

 

[vondo]

To clarify what seems to happen with the the above steps (and I haven't done this very often, so it could be wrong, I admit) - when you group accessories together using the Home app and name it (e.g., "Living Room Lights"), the Home app automatically creates two scenes (e.g., "Living Room Lights On" and "Living Room Lights Off") with the selected accessories. Then Siri will be able to turn those accessories on or off with one command.

Not in my experience. I have a couple of groups and there is no scene. It's just that now the group shows up instead of the two or three lights individually.

 

[IGI2]

I just don't get it guys.

With such an AI behind I didn't have to create anything.

You just set up correct rooms.

I have:
Living Room
- Lamp
- Makeup lamp

Bedroom
- Bedside lamp
- Lamp

And now, when I say:
"Hey Siri, turn on all lights" - It just does what I say, lights up all the lights.
"Hey Siri, turn off all the lights" - It just does what I say, it turns off all the lights.

Hey Siri, turn on the lights in the living room - it turns on the lights in the living room
Hey Siri, turn off the lights in my bedroom - it turns off the lights in the bedroom

Hey Siri, turn on the bedside lamp - it turns on the bedside lamp.

If you have nice rooms, you don't even have to do groups.

I imagine groups would be necessary if you have a few groups in a room. Or when you have different devices than lights.

Then I would say, turn on my TV lights (for example, LEDs near the TV set).

 

[vondo]

I just don't get it guys.

With such an AI behind I didn't have to create anything.

You just set up correct rooms.

I have:
Living Room
- Lamp
- Makeup lamp

Bedroom
- Bedside lamp
- Lamp

And now, when I say:
"Hey Siri, turn on all lights" - It just does what I say, lights up all the lights.
"Hey Siri, turn off all the lights" - It just does what I say, it turns off all the lights.

Hey Siri, turn on the lights in the living room - it turns on the lights in the living room
Hey Siri, turn off the lights in my bedroom - it turns off the lights in the bedroom

Hey Siri, turn on the bedside lamp - it turns on the bedside lamp.

If you have nice rooms, you don't even have to do groups.

I imagine groups would be necessary if you have a few groups in a room. Or when you have different devices than lights.

Then I would say, turn on my TV lights (for example, LEDs near the TV set).

If all you want to do is what you've done, you are correct. In my case I set up groups for two reasons. Case 1: I have six hue light strips that are on top of and under my cabinets in the kitchen. I grouped them 3 and 3 so I have "mood lights" and "under cabinet" lights and they can all be controlled together. Case 2: I've got two circuits in the hall controlled by Lutron switches. I put them together too, mostly so my list of lights doesn't get so crowded. Groups have a use outside of Siri too, even if they are both in the "hallway".

And yes, having unique names for everything gets a little difficult. If you have a "Kitchen light" in the "Kitchen" room, Siri can get confused.

 

[BrettStah]

Not in my experience. I have a couple of groups and there is no scene. It's just that now the group shows up instead of the two or three lights individually.

I've set up two groups and one time I could've sworn it created scenes, but the other one it didn't. Could very well be I'm mistaken, or I already had created those scenes and forgot about them.

 

[IGI2]

If all you want to do is what you've done, you are correct. In my case I set up groups for two reasons. Case 1: I have six hue light strips that are on top of and under my cabinets in the kitchen. I grouped them 3 and 3 so I have "mood lights" and "under cabinet" lights and they can all be controlled together. Case 2: I've got two circuits in the hall controlled by Lutron switches. I put them together too, mostly so my list of lights doesn't get so crowded. Groups have a use outside of Siri too, even if they are both in the "hallway".

And yes, having unique names for everything gets a little difficult. If you have a "Kitchen light" in the "Kitchen" room, Siri can get confused.

I understand you completely, I use scenes myself, etc.

I just wanted you to think that maybe don't introduce a new HomeKit user to such cases, show him the logic (rooms organization) and why his "Living Room Lights" is flawed in the first place.

But this discussion has escalated quickly. Instead of him getting a response that instead of "Living Room Lights" scene he can address devices of a type "light" in a certain room without any predefined scenes, groups, et cetera, he received all organizational features in one go : )

 

[FreeState]

But this discussion has escalated quickly. Instead of him getting a response that instead of "Living Room Lights" scene he can address devices of a type "light" in a certain room without any predefined scenes, groups, et cetera, he received all organizational features in one go : )

It also skipped the use of Zones. For example, this is how my master bedroom is set up:

HomeKit: MyHome
Zone: "Back of house"*
Room: "Master Bedroom"
Group: Night Stands: has these accessories:
- Jeffs Light
- Partners Light

So, for example, I could do the following:

Siri: "Turn my lights off" - turns all lights at MyHome off.
Siri: "Turn the lights in the back of the house off" - turns off all lights that area in the zone "Back of house."
Siri: "Turn my master bedroom lights off" - turns all lights in my master bedroom.
Siri: "Turn my nightstand lights off" - turns off the nightstand lights.
Siri: "Turn off Jeffs Light" - turns off just my nightstand.

*Rooms can be in multiple zones. So, for example, my master bedroom is in two zones ("back of the house" and "inside.")

Edit to add: I grouped the nightstands so that they can easily be dimmed and controlled using one command or automation. I also have 9 Hue lights in our driveway overhang that I grouped to make the home app not so cluttered as they are typically controlled with Hue's app and not Siri command.

 

[BrettStah]

Not sure why the above post shows the quoted text as being from me...

 

[FreeState]

Not sure why the above post shows the quoted text as being from me...

That is odd. I didnt change it when I posted it, it auto filled that part in...