Alexa, SmartThings and Russound Home Audio?

Well, I am not 100% sure how I can help since you aren’t using Ask Alexa with this. If they show up in SmartThings and they are controllable via SmartThings, Ask Alexa CAN control them…especially if they are a variable device (like volume control). Have you tries Ask Alexa (using the invocation) to do any of the activities it can’t do natively?

I want to use Ask Alexa. I thought I was using it. That is the only way I
can see that this will work. How do I invoke Ask Alexa? I envision that I
will have to use webCoRE through Ask Alexa to get what I want.

Michael,
I appreciate all of you help here. I really do. But I don’t have a clue what I am doing. I am spending hours reading and attempting different tasks without any productive results. I know the solutions are right in front of me. I just cannot see them. I have no desire to be spoon fed here but my frustration is reaching an end point…

I want to use Ask Alexa to do compound commands. I want to say “Alexa, tell Smartthings to turn on the Kitchen speakers and set the source to the radio”. Turning on the speakers is easy and I can already do that. The part that I am beating my head over is the “source” part. How does Alexa know what source I am talking about? How does Alexa parse out “radio” so that I can write a piston to turn on that source, ie…

If source is "radio"
then execute Source0 (on).

where source0 is the variable (I think) from my Russound RNET device that corresponds to the Tuner that I have physically attached to port 0 on my Russound. I cannot figure out how Alexa, or Ask Alexa or Smartthings is going to know that source=“radio”. How does Alexa get that information and where is it stored. If I can figure that part out I can write webCoRE pistons that will turn on the “radio” or my “music server” or “cable box” or “bluetooth”.

Todd,

Let’s start with the basics…If you have Ask Alexa set up, you can say:

“Alexa, Ask SmartThings Version”

This should confirm your Ask Alexa is working.

Either way, let’s pull this into a PM so we don’t keep going back and forth in this thread…The good news is that what you are looking for is possible(except compound commands, which come later this month).

Michael,

Are you still helping people troubleshoot their problems with connecting Russound to Echo Dot? I cannot get Alexa to recognize any speaker or zone.

I had previously helped with the integration into Ask Alexa, but the prerequisite is that you have them working in SmartThings. Have you gotten that piece to work?

I have not enabled SmartThings. I have the Russound MCA-66 and I enabled Russound Control but I did not know I needed SmartThings. I will do that now and see what happens. Just so you know, I can ask Alexa to launch Russound and she says “Welcome to Russound Control. What would you like to do?” I reply, “Play Pandora in Office.” Alexa then replies, “Cannot locate room called Office.” I then try this with all my other rooms and even “all rooms” but Alexa still replies that she cannot locate those rooms. I will enable SmartThings and see where that leads me. Thanks.

Yeah… my app only interfaces items that exist in SmartThings.

I would be happy to help you as much as I can. First, I also had a terrible time getting my zones and speakers to list as “Things” in my SmartThings app. You MUST get them in the list of “Things” first. That required that I go through redloro’s Russound work AND VIDEO several times to make sure everything was correct. Then, I was able to add those to several SmartApps (including Ask Alexa and Webcore) in order to start doing things with them. The MOST important step in the process for me was getting all of the redloro stuff correct first.

I appreciate the offer. I am such a newbie in this area that I’m just now realizing that my Russound MCA-66 needs a software upgrade to enable the voice activation feature. I have reached out to my Russound tech so that he can upgrade my system. Hopefully when I get that done, I will attempt to connect them again with better luck…if not, you will hear from me. Thanks again.

Hi folks. I know this thread has been dormant for a while but I would love to get some help with this integration. I’ve have the Redloro app working and I’ve setup Ask Alexa, with the exception of adding in some code. I’m happy to pay for your time. Appreciate the help. Thanks.

If you have the redloro app working, you should be able to add your Russound items in smartthings. What exactly are you looking to do?

Thanks. Well I got the monoprice Things to work in Alexa natively and “Ask Alexa”. But some of the Ask Alexa devices are broken. I wish there was a way to change the source through Alexa. Seems like that functionality isn’t there. Also. The zones show up in the Classic App but GUI doesn’t show in the STSC app. That device page is just blank white.

I only use the ST Classic App. I know that this app is going to be discontinued. But it works for me presently.

I can change the source with Alexa. But it requires an Alexa routine and Webcore code. I use a specific command such as “Alexa, play eighties hits in the kitchen”. The Alexa routine triggers a virtual switch that activates my webcore routine to select the appropriate source, volume and location and start the music. It works rather well. I have many such Alexa commands. My plan has been to use Ask Alexa/Echo Speaks and pass parameters to do these things but I just have not put the time into it yet. I have asked @redloro to modify his DTH and change the names of the sources from Source(0), Source(1), Source(2)…to more appropriate names (Radio, Cable Box, Pandora, etc.). I attempted to modify them myself and broke the DTH. I think that if those names could be customized, then using Alexa to change the source would be easier. For instance, my kitchen speakers are named “Kitchen Speakers.” Presently I can say “Alexa, turn on the Kitchen Speakers” and they will turn on. I can set the volume to any percentage (Alexa, set the Kitchen Speakers to 50 percent) all without any additional switches or code. If I could then say “Alexa, turn on the Radio” then I would not necessarily need any further switches or webcore code. And eventually I could say “Alexa, turn on the radio in the kitchen” and accomplish all of that without switches or webcore. I suspect Echosistant/Echo Speaks offer that functionality, but I have not jumped into those yet.

Thanks Pantheon.

That is exactly what I’d like to do. Would you be willing to share your Webcore code? I have Wecore installed but haven’t jumped in yet. I just got everything working with my RPi. That was a bit of a hurdle.
I appreciate your reply. It would be nice to have the source names show up in ST. It’s strange since the sources have names in the config.js file in Redloro’s setup.

On a separate note, the node server keeps crashing. Have no idea what that’s about

I’ll be happy to share whatever I have. The Webcore code is really very basic.