Let homey always know when the TV is on or off

I just bought my broadlink and connected it to homey, recorded “on/off” button and made a virtual on and off switch. Also added it trough google so i can use speech command.

But, the problem comes since there is so many ways that i can turn my TV on and OFF that my virtual button is never in sync.

If someone uses the normal TV controller, homey cant really know that the TV was turn on or off.
If someone uses google to turn it on, its the same deal.

How can i make my homey to get an update the status of the TV.
I guess this is only possible if i combine it with a power plug and monitor the power usage, since a IR is just a command you send out no matter what the status of the device is.

I think you’ve got your answer. As you said, Homey won’t know if someone turns the tv on with the IR controller.

Right, you have to check the power consumption of the TV. And then I would use tags to check the status.
If the consumption is higher than X Watt, then tag “TV” set to 1.
If the consumption is less than X Watt, tag “TV” would be set to 0.

If you have a netgear router, the netgear app can see if the tv is on based on network connectivity.

https://apps.athom.com/app/com.gruijter.netgear

I do this myself with my lg tv. It is within 30s accurate detecting on/off state. Maybe other network tools also can do this if you do not have a netgear router.

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@Gruijter
What a clever solution! Thanks for sharing that!

BTW, I use that app to detect the presence of my children: their phones come online. ‘Home’ is almost instant, ‘away’ takes 30 us minutes. How do you get such a fast response?

The response time depends on the quality of your home wifi, and maybe the exact router type. With a very good coverage you can set the away-delay to a much shorter period compared to a home with bad wifi. I have a r7800 as main router, and a r7000 on 2nd floor as additional access point.

I am however using a secret new version of the netgear app (:zipper_mouth_face: ) that allows to set this delay time per device, in stead of one general setting. Because my tv is connected by wire I can set the delay time even to 0 seconds.

I’m testing this new version now, and will probably publish it as beta in the appstore :soon:

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Aha, that explains a lot @Gruijter!

I have a R7000 in the hallway, where everybody enters. Wifi should be excellent! Setting wired devices with short delays would be cool!

I use the App Smart Presence for this because a haven t a netgear router. I was suprised how fast it detects devices which connected to the wifi network.

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