Need to hire one of you geniuses

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Seriously going nuts trying to figure out how to make my Airbnb house “user friendly”.

I just bought the Harmony hub and elite remote but let me list out my setup first.

The headache begins with an Intermatic PE653 controller that turns my pool waterfall (which is filter and heater runs anytime it runs). As well as my pool light (that my pool guy replaced with LED and now it’s stuck on red). The PE953 remote lights up but the screen is shot so was hoping to not replace it by incorporating it into an all in one solution.

Intermatic won’t give me the 3.9 firmware version that apparently makes it connect with home automation controllers.

The outdoor landscape lights are on a timer not connected to it. Hoping an outdoor z-wave plug can tie it into scenes.

Inside, I have a Denon AVR-1913 receiver with 2 indoor and outdoor speaker zones. Needs Spotify added to firmware.

TV (not smart) has a Bose sound bar and it’s own remote.

AT&T U-verse is the cable, home phone, and internet. (Rip off)

Not sure why but I have two Sonos bridges I’m assuming for the AirPlay. Not sure if those are even needed.

Home alarm, door locks, doorbell and outside cameras, and thermostat are all Vivint. The panel will allow me to add any Z-wave switches and hopefully outlets which I’m waiting to buy because I don’t know which setup will cause less confusion. But switches and outlets are on my shopping list.

Garage has MyQ but I can even have Vivint replace that.

Is this new harmony remote going to be of any help to me in getting everything linked up? I urgently need somebody who says “buy this and this, click on this, copy and paste this and that, and have your installer do all of this”.

I’ve been told control4 is ideal for my situation but I really don’t want the expense of starting all over. Anybody got any solutions that I could hire you for? Please?!

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Well control4 is $$$ and pretty proprietary hence also locks you into future expenses as you will want to/have to keep adapting your home. openHAB is the total opposite so in terms of software I’d say at least for that you have come to the right place.
Hiring for integration is a different story, though.
Your setup is pretty U.S. biased and there’s rather few U.S. guys around here to operate openHAB, let alone to know those devices you already own.
And I doubt integration can work out without hands-on on devices and being on site - sorry.

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About your pool light that’s stuck on red, have you tried flicking the switch on and off quickly? On mine, that would cycle through the colours, even to a changing colour mode. My preference is plain white (all colours on).

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Ha yeah I’ve been so obsessed with trying to figure it out because it was stuck on blue for a week before changing to red. I have flicked it fast, slow, a dozen times in a row… I don’t get it. Makes me upset with pool guy tho cause I just wanted white as well! I’ll keep playing with it though. Thanks! :+1:

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Thanks Markus. I actually did well with the Harmony remote where I’ve combined six remotes into one now. My main goal is getting the pool equipment onto my phone to manage since it’s a vacation rental home. Seems as if I’m just going to have to replace the Intermatic controller. I’ve seen a handful of people in forums say they received the 3.9 firmware version from them but they playing dumb with me claiming 3.4 is their latest. So, they aren’t worth the efforts. I’ll replace their controller. Thanks for the info tho! Appreciate it! :+1:

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Mind you that you won’t want your guests to install some app before they can use all your features so least thing is to use OH to bundle and provide a tablet or similar with the OH app.
But a real user friendly automation IMHO will have switches, too. Tricky for color lighting.
You might want to consider setting up a ZWave network. That’ll work with and without openHAB. There’s color controllers available and even a color input “switch” (from Sunricher). And once you have that minimum network working you can expand it, there’s >1000 devices available to choose from for all sorts of applications.

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Jim… that worked!!! I tried it again as you described and it worked. Thank you so much!!!