I’m a programmer that has experience with many languages and even amazon web services so my idea of “ease if installation” might not be as reliable than the average person. None of it confused me, but there were many steps involved so “easy” compared to other apps I’d say it was a lot more involved.
As for features I’d say EchoSistant is on the right track with the use of separate profiles for invocation words. Because having to "ask home, or house, then a question is very unnatural to me. However this does make the setup more involved than Ask Alexa. Though one issue I have noticed is the use or “the” and “my” needs to correlate in certain circumstances. For instance “Alexa, turn the lights off in THE office” works, but “Alexa, turn the lights off in MY office” does not.
I also like the ability to enable the use of PIN codes only when it certain modes. Only when the mode is set to home will I be able to lock unlock the front door without having the supply a PIN. Which makes it more convenient. Same goes for setting the alarm on or off depending on the current mode.
Ask Alexa seems to have more integration with current apps when it comes to message queuing, but I’ve yet to delve into that functionality.
So far my only gripe with either solution is the need to the invocation word. Having to add “at/ask” invocation to “unlock the Front Door” isn’t very natural. Is the solution to create a “front” profile or “door” profile? But then would we need the use for an alias name for the device because we would need to repeat “front front” or “door door” in this situation?
Anyway that’s what I’ve come up with so far. I really enjoy messing around with stuff like this and it’s a total blast when when it works and is way easier than getting out the phone to use the horrible smartthings app. So keep up the good work!!
Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I am glad you see where we are going with this app. We have many ideas and not enough time to put them in practice. The next version will build upon what we learned so far. Speed, accuracy and flexibilty are the most important and we are preparing something we believe, will compensate even more for the disadvantage of using an invocation phrase.
A suggestion that might work for using the Office and my Office, is to create two Profiles. One is named Office and the other MY Office. That way you can use both invocations when needed. I do that with MY home.
Also, with Profiles, you don’t have to use “turn”. You could just say Alexa, lights on in the office. It seems more convenient to me… is one less word to use.
Been working on this all day. Accidentally posted this in the older thread…
Well, I got this installed, but so far I’ve only gotten one group of lights to work. Everything else gives me a "sorry, I can’t find a device named … in your account. Any ideas on why? I seem to have everything set up identical to the one that works, other than that ones called “bathroom” and the other is called “office” or “livingroom” or “office lights”
I am curious - have a lot of integration on SmartThings and the likes - but not messed with the integration of Alexa and SmartThings. Between Ask Alexa and EchoSistant - any suggestions? I am a developer and geek, so comfortable in code etc but don’t really have time to invest too much in this and the WAF has to be high for it to work with Alexa.
Not trying to judge, but long threads with a lot of passion and would appreciate some input and direction.
EchoSistant brought the WAF up a lot higher, because she gets less frustrated if the wording isn’t exactly right. The basic integration is fine, and I set up a lot of “groups” that help. Echosistant added more options for wording that do work, although sometimes Alexa gets confused between the similarly named devices.Initial integration took a while, but I found it easier to slowly add more profiles, as we came up with new ways we wanted to try and say things, or Alexa responded with a “I;m not sure what you meant” to something that seemed perfectly logical. I believe I also have Ask Alexa configured, but I haven’t used it in a while…
I also have a group in the basic integration called “Damn Lights” so that if Alexa is acting up, we just yell at her to turn off the damn lights, and it does the trick.
That’s awesome. I cannot belive I didn’t think about that. I thought for sure Amazon would have added one for us by now for as many times Alexa didn’t get the device right. The groups in ES helped a lot to reduce the cursing -
I’d install Ask Alexa for now and see how well that works for you. I hear EchoSistant is making some changes to their backend to make it easier and even more useful. So I’d probably wait for that, unless you are feeling adventurous, then install both!
Both apps do things better/different than the other. I think if the two merged the best of both together it would be amazing, but for now I still believe the Alexa platform isn’t really where it should be yet so both are having to work with what they can to make things as easy and convenient as possible.
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bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
674
Hello Amit,
Thank you for the interest in EchoSistant. I understand what you are asking for and that would be a very long and drawn out explanation. So, I’ll keep it short and sweet.
EchoSistant allows for much more freedom in how you speak to your Alexa devices. EchoSistant is much more forgiving in that you do not have to remember exact phrases to make things happen. You can also create “Room Profiles” in which you can control devices in just that room. Along with the continued conversation in Echosistant, I can assure you that the WAF will increase.
An example of a conversation about the lights in your “Bedroom” profile…
Alexa, turn on the lights in the Bedroom
Ok, turning on the lights in the Bedroom, would you like anything else?
It’s too bright
Ok, dimming the lights in the Bedroom, would you like anything else?
Change the color to warm white.
Ok, changing the color to warm white, would you like anything else?
Turn off the fans
Ok, turning off the fans, would you like anything else?
No.
It has been my pleasure, goodbye.
As you can see, you invoked the skill only once, but you were able to do many things.
I have pushed an update to the Notification-Add on to align it with recent enhancements that have been done on the RemindR app. The two apps are now identical and can be used from within ES, or as a stand alone app. The update requires an update to the EchoSistant main app.
This update is not required. You may continue to use the current versions of your apps. This is the first major update in a series leading up to the release of EchoSistant Version 5, which is scheduled for June 30th (if testing goes smoothly).
Ok so I have more profiles working now, but it still seems very rigid. I definitely can’t do anything like that “talk like a teenager” video in the main post. Really the only commands that work reliably are “turn on the lights in the …” and “lights on/off in the …”
If i try to say “alexa, turn on the office lights” she replies “sorry, i couldn’t find a device named office lights in your account”.
Saying “turn on the lights in the office” works.
Now I do have a device called “office lights” in my ST app, but I don’t have a profile made for it in EchoSistant (tried, but couldn’t get it to work so i deleted it)
I also don’t seem to have the option to turn off the conversational part in the app as shown in the wiki step below:
Step 4 - Tap on “Message Output Settings” -
~ Section One - ‘Alexa Responses’ - Putting a message in here will override other options
and will be played back on the Echo Device every time the Profile is executed. Enabling this
option allows any voice messages that are sent to be played back on the Echo Device that the sender is using. This
allows the Sender to know that the message was interpreted correctly and sent. Enabling this
will stop the Alexa Device from asking “Anything else” after each command is given and executed.strong text
Please keep in mind, that a custom skill uses what Amazon calls connecting words. You can use ask/tell/use at the begining of your command OR you can use the IN at the end of your command. Absence of connecting phrase means Alexa doesn’t uses EchoSistant to take actions. In your example, “sorry, i couldn’t find a device named office lights in your account”…is the standard response that Alexa gives directly, not through ExhoSistant…
To connect to Alexa using EchoSistant, you can either say:
Alexa tell/use/ask < Profile Invocation Name > to do something. OR Alexa do something IN < Profile Invocation Name >
I have another problem. I can’t get a profile named “livingroom” to work no matter what I do. My skill is set up as one word, and the profile matches but it still gives me a useless response.
“Alexa, turn on the lights in the living room” or even “alexa, turn on the lights in living room”
“Sorry, I can’t find a device or group named “lightslivingroom” in your account”
