Alexa + SmartThings + IFTTT + Harmony to turn TV on and off by voice (2015 version)

[JDRoberts]

@ultrazero

Very cool! @JDRoberts Whats the best way to use natural language for this? Are you naming the activity as simply the channel name ; i.e. “ESPN” “IFC” etc? Or creating Alexa groups? something else?

I started out just using the channel name, but that can sometimes conflict with built-in echo options. For example if I say “turn on ESPN” it would often try to start the ESPN radio station. So I changed the name to “ESPN TV” and then it worked fine. But you may just have to experiment to see what feels natural to you. See the naming quirks thread for more discussion.

Echo Naming Quirks

Please add more as you find them. echo does not do well with device names that include numbers, like "kitchen 1." If you have a device with a name like this, and you don’t want to change it because you like having that name for your smartthings dashboard, then just put the device into an echo group of one and give it a group name that echo does like. Echo does not like the group name “everything.” Some possible alternatives include “house” or “all devices” Echo will always accept “turn on” or “switch on.” Iris has a list of 20 “basic” command formats for switches and thermostats that echo should always accept (although using a rigid command format sort of defeats the purpose of having echo’s natural language skills). But at least you could use these to test a particular prob…