yes, I know there’s already a great plug-in HelloHue which mostly does what I want.
but sadly, it just not work with remote plex server and the developer said why this can’t be done.
@ledge74 any way to make it work with a remote plex server? (my hue bridge and server are not on the same network). Thanks.
I asked Philips an access to their remote API but haven’t heard back from them yet.
this could be different now with the new hue entertainment api but still, it’ll be better handled from client ofc.
@nokdim said:
You can use webhooks to control stuff like this which uses play/pause/stop as well as scrobble.
thanks for reply.
I’ve already looked over webhook feature and its home automation example but…
first, I’m one of those ‘average users’.
Generally speaking, webhooks are a fairly advanced feature and won’t commonly be used by an “average” user.
and I don’t think this simple light control feature has to be geeky-advanced-users-only.
second, that wink automation example looks it relies on wink’s own remote api.
but in case of philips hue, there’s no open remote api. @ledge74 of HelloHue already mentioned about it and there’s other devs who’s complaining about this.
and last, it seems it’s more logical/natural/proper/efficient to control lights from clients which is physically located with the lights and within same local net. (than through remote server and bunch of external api’s.)
maybe webhook could be a solution and it won’t be a problem if you’re streaming from your own server which you have full control.
but what if you’re streaming from someone else’s?
Cost effective home automation including voice recognition has been attempted many times as far back as the 90s with X10 and Hal 2000 so Phillips, Amazon and all the rest are not inventing a new market just responding to renewed user demand and although 20 years has passed and you would think technology would make this easier for the end user it seems the opposite effect where more technology makes it more complicated but enough of my thoughts…
Since there are so many vendors of home automation i.e. Wink, Hue, Samsung and so on it would require “Plugins” like you use today or specific settings built into Plex for each vendor and you can imagine what an nightmare that would be to maintain as vendors change things all the time which would require Plex to be updated to match. APIs came about as a way for the industry to systematically communicate with each other so a shared communication standard and Plex webhooks utilize this API functionality in order to eliminate this complexity from needing to be built into the program.
This puts the burden of knowledge on the end user which to be honest if you can click play on a plex item and change a light status that is a fairly advanced function considering some people have a difficult time even playing items…
Although there may be no “Remote API” for Hue each bridge acts as an API gateway so you can take that wink example that is provided and re-purpose it to interact with your bridge locally and not need to leave your local network.
You can get all the details about local API access Here you could also set this up for remote access if you really wanted for services like Zapier or it can stay local only.
This is postman talking to my local Hue bridge and turning on a light -
This is the Wink example and you would need to modify some parameters like the ones highlighted which I used above in the postman test along with other stuff -
So I do agree that this should get simplified and do not think you are wrong but since vendors are never gonna agree on a single standard and software developers cant build and maintain for every vendor the user is stuck in the middle to get his or her light to dim when he or she hits play (so maybe it is your time to become a “non average user”)
(so maybe it is your time to become a “non average user”)