HABridge vs Official Fibaro Alexa Skill

[Guest andyhud]

Hi  Guys

 

I'm curious to understand if people have any view on using HABridge versus the official Fibaro Alexa Skill for voice integration

 

I've been using HABridge for quite a while on a Raspberry PI3 and that is linked to my Fibaro and works well, but is limited at times in terms of voice commands, whereas the Fibaro official custom skill seems to have a wider voice offering

 

However HABridge runs locally on your network and doesnt rely on the Fibaro infrastructure to get to your HC2 whereas the Fibaro Alexa Skill does.. 

 

Any views?

 

Thanks

 

Andy

 

Edited September 20, 2017 by andyhud

[morpheus75 76]

interesting question...

i have been using the bridge for a while. when the skill cam out i added it but was disappointed.

all the devices were added with the standard names but no scenes, later i found out the only Block scenes were added automatically and not LUA.

since then i have just stayed with the bridge.

personally i prefer the bridge as i only add what i want to add, and i can add either device or scene, especially LUA scenes. all my scenes are LUA.

 

i agree that the bridge has only 3 commands but i have learnt to work around that.

the bonus of running it on a pi is i have added sonos-http-api and webserver (for future use) and amazon dash button (activate a device with a dash button).

 

thanks

[Guest fat]

I tried the skill and found it completely useless and I then switched to the HA Bridge. The bridge is so much faster to respond and I will not be going back

[akatar 208]

The HA bridge is faster, with fibaro skill it takes a couple of seconds, it takes so long i thought the command failed.

HA bridge reacts within a second

[Guest andyhud]

Thanks guys. I agree with your comments. The fibaro skill when you say a voice command has to get to your fibaro home center via fibaros datacentres (home.fibaro.com) and then proxied to your home centre in your house. That's why you see a delay when latency is an issue plus your at the mercy of their infrastructure. If fibaros home.fibaro.com service goes down, so does your Alexa skill integration. 

 

Habridge runs locally in your house next to your home centre and has no other dependancies which is why you see no delay in the voice commands getting executed. Downside is the limitation of voice options but it's not the end of the world. 

 

Agreed, sonos http integration can be run on the same pi which makes a lot of sense.

 

Both have their merits but I think I'll stick with Habridge for now. 

 

Cheers. 

 

Andy.