As you can imagine Echo Speaks has been a huge success.
Everyone knows that WebCore is the most popular rules engine in the
ST world, so, how are you using the two together?
Post your pistons here for others to enjoy! And if you’re using other apps
as well, let us know what you’re doing!
I’ll start with a super simple but incredibly popular one in my home. The family
really likes this one. I call it, Elevator Music
Since my wife prefers not to autoset alarm for stay, I have set up a reminder. Its also covers if one of our phones thinks its still away or have a dead battery.
These are some hardcore reminders…
Copying this over from the other thread because it is buried there…
barking dog when motion outside via spotify. what are the odds on this webcore import code???
I’m getting — I can’t find Dog Barking Version 4 on Spotify…
Ideas ?
Simple one:
If time is after 9:30pm
And salt lamp gets turned off,
Speak “goodnight wife” thru bedroom echo dot
LOVE this app, been waiting for something this easy.
#1, when I put my house into ‘goodnight’ mode, Alexa now tells me if one of my outdoor doors or gates is left open
#2, I have a keypad lock. When my son comes home from school using the keypad, it waits 20 seconds for him to get to the kitchen and Alexa welcomes him home.
I’m sure I will come up with more stuff, but even the simple things are awesome.
I’m paying for Spotify service so maybe that has something to do with it???
I have a premium account too… I can find it using my Spotify app… So my Syntax is wrong… Hum…
The first piston pictured below is a typical announcements piston that I use. As you can see when a trigger is activated, instead of sending an announcement to a bunch of speakers, it just sets a single global variable to a unique message.
Update to 2nd Piston below
I have created a second global variable to trigger the piston. This is because if an action occurred multiple times WC would not see the updated variable as a change, since it was updated to the same data. Such as, The back door has opened. So, I would only receive the message once while there door could have open and closed multiple times. So, now the other pistons update the MSG variable as well as update the pistonTrigger variable with the variable $now.
The second piston pictured below is my speaker control piston. What this does is set up audio zones based around my echo devices. These zones have different conditions to determine if the zone is active or not. The piston is triggered by the change of the single global variable. When the variable changes a snapshot of the piston is taken and then executed. If a zone is active, then that zone receives the announcement. If it is inactive, then no announcement.
Due to the snapshot (this is a built in function of how WC works) I can a multiple actions occur at very close intervals, they never ever happen at the exact same time, and the unique message of the variable is preserved for the announcement.
Echo Speaks uses the built in que system to receive, store, and play the announcements in order.
This gives me a few benefits. If a single speaker is in 10 different announcement pistons and I want to change how that speaker announces, then I only update the control piston… not all 10 of the others, thus making maintenance very easy indeed.
I’ve noticed that you use a lot of Mode= conditions in your pistons. Do you have a method of showing / controlling the current mode on the dashboard? I know I can create push buttons to set but I would like to know my current mode also.
Which dashboard?
If I want to know the mode I usually just ask my nearest Alexa device.
I also have a piston that runs every 15 minutes and verifies the correct mode is in place. If it finds that the mode is not correct it will send me a notification and then attempt to correct the error.
I was just looking for a cool way to show the current mode on my “SmartThings Favorites” like a device and then possible on my Actiontiles as a device.
hmmm, I’m not sure. I do not use either of those.
Just inquiring is all. I’m wondering if I should continue to code against modes if it’s not easily displayable (current mode) in SmartThings.
example.
If Mode = Night do something
If Mode = Morning do something else
etc…
Are they trying to push us to Scenes?
Does the set level work? It will set the echo to 25% (I assume 4 on the echo)
You can do this with webcore and Actiontiles. I’m not following the issue.
Just took a peek over there and I can indeed show my mode in ActionTiles, thanks.
I was looking to do that same type of thing "Mode= " status in my Home / Favorites under ST Classic. Am I the only one left still using the Favorites Screen in ST? I must be… 
I have taken over this thread with an unrelated topic. I’m going to create a new topic if I have any further questions.
