[DEPRECATED] Ask Alexa 2.3.0

I updated the app to 2.3.0a. I found a few minor items that I could change as I was starting on the next version.

You should be able to upgrade via the IDE/GitHub integration.

Enjoy!

@MichaelS, I’ve been lurking on your AA pages for a while, biding my time with Alexa Helper. Seeing the major release tonight, I bit the bullet and setup AA using the wiki instructions. I was successful, but I had to overcome what I think were some updates to the Amazon Lambda/Developer accounts process since the wiki was written (ST side was fine, including Git integration). Had I thought about it at the time, I would have taken some new screenshots for you, but that would probably be advisable (along with some light update driven revisions) for new users going forward. My test commands have been successful, now it’s time to hunker down with the manual and take this baby for a spin!

Many thanks for everything you do, both Alexa driven and your community involvement!

Thanks for the note…I think I will go through the process myself as you are not the first to mention that the screens have changed.

Have a look tomorrow morning and see if the flow is more accurate as I should be done with my updates by then.

I really appreciate the feedback and am glad despite the instructions you were able to get it operational!

MichaelS, thanks for the update and helping fix my setup issue. i do have a question for you, I want to ask Alexa if any windows or doors are open, and if so, which one(s) how would I set up a function that I could voice encore that would tell me?

Andrew,

The best way to do that is through a voice report. You could call it Window Report, or even call it something that give the feeling of natural language such as “which Windows or Doors are open”, however, Amazon really recommends commands be three syllables or less…But, try it…Then, you will set up your report similar to this:

If you want every item to report, turn off the “Summary” thing at the bottom. But again, if you want a natural response turning this on might be what you are looking for.

Let me know if that works for you.

Works a treat, thanks!

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I did update quite a few screenshots and text…let me know if you find specific areas that still are unclear.

Thanks again for the suggestion.

Michael, I have another request that I’m not sure how to build, or if it’s even possible.

I’ve set up a macro so that when I say “Alexa, ask Smartthings to turn on House alarm” it triggers a WebCore piston that waits 30 seconds and then runs the SHM action to turn on the alarm, the macro says “Alarm setting in 30 seconds” and it all works great.

What I want though, is a way for Alexa to say “Alarm setting in 30 seconds” and then when 10 seconds are left, count down from 10 to zero. Is this possible? I realise that we can’t get Alexa to say something without a voice prompt, but it is possible to insert a pause in the message she gives so that the message is “Alarm setting in 30 seconds”, 20 seconds of silence “10, 9, 8, 7” etc. you get the picture :slight_smile:

Unfortunately, that is not possible currently. You CAN enable an alarm using a delayed macro, but the countdown part will not work on Alexa directly as it can only respond immediately to commands…any delayed response would require Alexa to ‘wake up’ on its own and start talking…This isn’t and probably won’t ever be allowed on Smart Speakers as there apparently is a fear of ‘scaring’ consumers.

This is possible with external speakers like Sonos and the like, but one Alexa stops talking she won’t wake back up. And to address your next possible question…Yes…it probably would be possible to simply have the response to you setting the alarm to be an actual count down…but to have it respond then wake back up 10 seconds before the alarm goes off…not quite yet and possibly never.

Looks good, future AA installers thank you! I think the updates you made directly address most of the things I tripped on :slight_smile:

Perfect…I aim to please…if you ever spot anything in either the app or the documentation, just let me know and I can address it quickly.

Just updated for version 3 - all went perfectly. I love this app.

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Here is an update on development of yet the next version:

[RELEASE] Ask Alexa

I’m having a humorous problem with setting up Ask Alexa to check the status of my garage door. My wife’s name is Jana which is pronounced with a Y as Yana. So I set up an alias for “Yana’s garage” which of course didn’t work. It heard everything but Yana including Johna and jono and Jane Ah … so I went to First and Second garage but then the First alias kept getting recognized as “1st garage” instead of “first garage” which made it of course not work. So I added another alias for “1st garage” and that finally worked. Why is it so hard? I know this isn’t an Ask Alexa thing but until Amazon figures out how people really talk it will never go truly viral. And I have a standard TV newscaster voice so I should be easy to understand.For whatever reason it recognized “second garage” and didn’t try to change it to 2nd garage. Go figure.

By the way, Ken’s Garage didn’t work either. It kept thinking I was saying “can garage” or kin garage. I set that one to My Garage which worked perfectly. So either My Garage or Second Garage both now work.

Yeah…This is a common problem. Within Ask Alexa I fixed many of these for devices by setting up aliases for both devices and macros…However, the limiting factor will be what Amazon hears, and that is not configurable by the end user.

This wiki suggests that I can use Ask Alexa as a door chime. Is that actually possible?

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Set_Up_a_Door_Open_Chime/Siren

Actually it isn’t…not directly…Alexa can not ‘wake up’ without a voice command. Ask Alexa does have the ability to put things into a ‘message queue’, but you still need to query Alexa to get the alert, which almost defeats the purpose of the ‘door chime’ concept.

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Gotcha. Thanks!

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I have updated Ask Alexa to 2.3.1…This introduces the concept of Rooms/Groups without having to install additional skills.

@MichaelS, quick question. I run R&D at our company and as a fun project to learn/understand Azure Event Hubs/Streaming Analytics/PowerBI I’ve decided to attempt to stream all my Smarthome data (which is a lot) into an Azure Event Hub and then push that data to blob storage and PowerBI via Stream Analytics. To do this, I’ve used the work of Ben Crouse - http://bencrouse.com/post/publishing-smartthings-events-to-an-azure-event-hub

I have this functioning and it’s pushing the data that he has built in. That said, I want to add additional data to be pushed up to Azure, specifically data from the Foobot so I can track air quality and what specifically typically goes bad in my house, etc, to run cool reports and even do some machine learning, etc, etc.

Long story short, the ‘capability’ items come across just fine. For example, when I added the capability of Carbon Dioxide measurement to the app it found the foobot, let me select it and push data. The issue I am running into is that pollution, particle, voc, and GPIstate are listed as ‘attributes’ in your code. As such if I attempt to pull them in as capabilities in the Azure event hub smartthings app it doesn’t see the device. If I change it to ‘attribute’ in the Azure event hub smartthings app then it just asks me to enter a value rather than pulling the data from the device to be pushed up.

Any advice on how to make this work? Been banging my head against the wall for a while so hoping you had some thoughts.

Thanks!