It’s amazing what you can get your devices to do in this day and age. You can playdirections from your phonethrough the car speakers and have anindoor camerathat tracks the movement of something going by. There are evensmartwatchesnow that can tell you if your heart rate is too high. Innovation in the consumer tech landscape is soaring, and when it comes to making your life easier, you should jump on the bandwagon when it comes to smart home devices.
Thanks to open-source software, you can program your devices to take over various parts of your household. There are functionalities and capabilities like Matter and Thread that allow your devices to talk to one another – which, if you’re looking to make the most out of your smart home, you should enable. One of those crucial components is your TV. If you have an LG TV with webOS software, you can do a lot more than you probably realize.
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LG TV’s can connect to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, which you can control with voice commands. But did you know you could also automate some other devices around your home using the LG TV? It may not be for everyone, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Here’s how.
LG webOS is the operating system that runs LG TVs. It allows you utilize the TV as a smart TV, so you don’t need a streaming device to use apps on it. It also allows you to work with home devices and create home automations with them.
How to connect your LG TV to Alexa or Google Assistant
First, start with the basics
Using the regular remote that came with your LG TV is too boring – you want to control it in other ways, such as with your voice. It’s easy to do because the LG TV offers Bluetooth capabilities, meaning you can sync it with smart speakers or voice command apps like Google Home and Amazon Alexa. To pair these, you can follow some simple steps that involve LG ThinQ and the corresponding Google Home app. For Amazon Alexa, it’s even simpler.
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To pair with Google Home:
Go back to Google Home and make sure that LG ThinQ shows up as a connected device. If it’s not, you may have to redo these steps.
To pair with Amazon Alexa:
That’s all – Amazon Alexa should be paired. It will give you the opportunity to control your LG TV from Google or Alexa-capable devices. you’re able to also add it wirelessly to Apple HomeKit though the Apple HomeKit app.
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There’s so much you can do
Once you have that set up, you’re probably wondering what else you should pair with your LG TV. What you need is to work through a platform calledHome Assistant. The open-source software lets you connect a variety of different devices to one another and assign prompts to each. It’s also an ideal way to turn different devices,like old tablets, into smart home hubs or remotes.
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Using Home Assistant, you may create automations from your LG TV to other devices. It may require you to plug your TV into your router via an Ethernet cable rather than connect it wirelessly, but by doing so, you’re able to program home automations in Home Assistant for simple tasks like turning the TV on; changing the channel, volume, or source; or even sending notifications to the TV. You’ll have to set up Home Assistant on a remote of some sort, like a tablet, phone, or hub, to be able to do these. I’ll list the best commands and how to create themhere.
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Link up multiple devices
Once you understand how Home Assistant works, and you’re comfortable putting together commands through some coding, you can increase the number of devices that you connect. Devices that also connect to Home Assistant can then be linked to the LG TV, so they can handle corresponding tasks.
If you’re using a different TV that doesn’t have the ability to be turned on and off via Home Assistant, it may prevent you from using it to automate other devices in the same way.
Once your LG TV is connected to Home Assistant, the next step is adding controls and triggers that make it the catalyst for turning on other devices. Because webOS allows you to turn the TV on through Home Assistant, it’s the perfect trigger to enable other things to happen in the room, too. If you’re using a different TV that doesn’t have the ability to be turned on and off via Home Assistant, it may prevent you from using it to automate other devices in the same way.
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If you want your smart light bulbs to dim when the TV is turned on, you’ll need to start by setting up a Trigger in Home Assistant that is the TV turning from off to on. The YAML format for this would read:
From there, you can set Conditions that will include not only your smart light bulbs turning on but also dimming, or dimming if they are already on, when the TV is turned on. If you only want them to dim at certain times, you can also set that as well. This in YAML format is:
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You’ll then need to know which dimming setting you want to use. For something like a Phillips Hue light bulb, you’re able to choose settings 2 or 3, which are dimmer than the main setting. Through Home Assistant, setting an Action is the next step. This in YAML format is:
That should do it. Whenever your turn your TV on, the smart bulbs should dim to a certain setting that you choose. There are 149 different smart light bulbs that have Home Assistant integrations, including brands like Belkin, Philips Hue, Govee, Ring, Home Connect, and more.
You can create similar automations with your webOS for things like displaying the feed to your doorbell on the TV when someone rings it, or showing a push notification when there’s movement outside. If you can set up a smart curtain driver that is controlled via voice commands, you can likely even have the curtain shut when the TV is on, too.
Because LG TV and webOS work with Home Assistant, you’re able to configure many other Home Assistant devices to run automations through it. Check out the full list of Home Assistant integrationshere.
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