I definitely would avoid delay and waits in WebCore.
Using the new commands send the full sequence to amazon… There is even a new wait command in amazon routines. so you can have amazon do all the work. Just so I’m clear it will wait till the previous command is finished before moving to the next (even without the delay)
Hi @pizzinini, can you help me out the music shortcut you created. When I try to use it I get a message on the phone : Numerical argument out of domain.
Did you replace the ID in the url in the Shortcut with the ID of your Webcore piston?
yes I did replace the ID in the url. I think the issue is with the Where variable part of the shortcut, But I don’t know how to fix that
Hm… i am getting the same error now. It looks like Siri stops listening after the “on” and does not capture the name of the echo… I will look into it.
Right it seems like Siri is looking at the entire voice request as one variable and not looking for both. Okay great thank you
I’m send to you a PM.
Does anybody know how to get a message to speak in a room where motion was last detected?
Something like “age since motion in living room is less than kitchen motion, then speak message in living room echo. “?
How about something that plays messages only in active rooms?
That’s almost exactly where I’m heading with my setup. I’m using Webcore of course, in concert with Rooms Manager.
I’m using power monitoring, motion sensors, status of contact sensors etc to determine the likelihood of whether a room is engaged or occupied - and then having Echo Speaks deliver messages only in those rooms. I’m also using typical sleep patterns (for example, lights being turned off in a bedroom) to tell Echo Speaks to NOT deliver after a certain time. The next thing will be to, depending on the content of the message, override the sleep setting.
I created a Tasker Profile on my phone that listens for incoming SMS messages. When it receives a message, the task that is executed is a RESTask REST Call which is an “HTTP GET” to the address of my Webcore piston. RESTask passes the message body as the parameter “MESSAGE” and the message sender as the parameter “WHO”. So the piston fires when the Webcore “HTTP GET” triggers from Tasker. The switch “Announce-Trigger” is simply a virtual switch that I can turn off with Alexa when I do not wish to hear the announcements of my incoming SMS messages. The test for if “MESSAGE” is null takes care of false executions when the “Announce-Trigger” switch is turned on after having been off.
Thank you, I have been using this and absolutely loving it!!! I have a disabled brother and he uses your app communicate now :+1:
Is there any way to get it to play on multiple speakers (by using the ‘select multiple’ option) ?
I’ve been trying to figure it out with no luck
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Wow! Glad to hear that this is helping your brother out! I’ll see if I can figure out a way to do the multi-select when I can sit at the computer for more than a few minutes.
I have a couple of questions.
What kind of delay is there with the extra cloud hops?
Wouldn’t it be easier to do this completely in WC?
If I’m understanding it correctly, i do not use IOS, i think I’m doing the same as this too using WC.
It’s playing your messages in the rooms that are active based on your criteria, correct?
Just curious if I’m missing something better.lol
The delay is the same as any Echo Speaks piston. It’s within 2 seconds of sending the text.
So I don’t think there’s a way to do it entirely in webCORE because there still needs to be a way to activate the piston.
With Siri Shortcuts, you can create a button on the home screen to activate any piston. You can even activate the piston by saying “Hey, Siri” on the iPhone.
So basically, you push a button on the home screen which runs a script that asks you for variables (in this case which speaker and input of text you want it to announce). The variables are pushed to a webCORE piston that uses the speak command to read out the text through the selected Echo (or any speaker with the tts capability).
An example would be if the kids were home alone and I’m at work, I can push a button to send a message to speakers around the house to remind them to do their homework, and get their chores done.
Another would be if the wife wasn’t answering her phone but I know she’s in the bedroom, and I desperately needed her to call me, I would tap the Announce button on the home screen and send a message to the Bedroom Echo to call me.
For someone who is unable to speak, they can tap a button, select the speaker, and input text for Alexa to speak the inputted text to communicate with others in the room.
Outside of Echo Speaks, you can create Shortcuts (Home Screen buttons or by invoking Siri) in conjunction with webCORE to trigger any webCORE action like toggling light switches.
Ok, I think I see how you’re doing it. This is what I have. Btw, thanks for explaining it.
For announcements like doors, windows, arrivals, and SHM I use a couple of pistons. The first one is the “Speaker Control” piston. This one determines what rooms are active based on criteria and restrictions.
This piston is the one used for windows and doors. When one of the devices is activated, this controls the message that I want announced.
For arrivals and departures I use this, it has random messages.
Any piston that sends any kind of predetermined audio message goes through the Speaker Control Piston, unless I want it only on certain Echo Devices.
I also wrote a small app, that I am incorporating into EchoSistant that does the same thing as the Speaker Control piston, but in app form.
In EchoSistant I can talk to one Echo and have my spoken message played on any specific device. So, if I’m in my office and I want to talk to my son Justin, who is in his room, I simply say,
“Alexa, tell Justin to come downstairs to take out the trash”. On the Echo Device in his room is say, “Hey, Justin, come downstairs to take out the trash”
I can also do this away from home. I long press the Home button on my Android and it opens the Amazon Alexa app. I say what message I want and it sends. If I want it to go to the whole house, I just say, “Alexa, tell the house xxxxxxx”
For my wife and I it is set up so that if I send a message to my wife… Alexa, Tell Wendi to bring home some milk… It will send her a text: “Bring home some milk”
You can also trigger WebCore pistons verbally from within EchoSistant just by saying, “Alexa,
Run piston, Bed Time” and it will execute that piston from wherever you are. You can also set up automations from within EchoSistant itself.
This is what I love about SmartThings… there are a million ways to do anything!
Is it possible to execute an Alexa skill with EchoSpeaks? Here is the use case: I want to set up a verbal warning if there is a tornado warning (likely from Accuweather). I woul dlike to sound a horn before the warning plays. I found an alexa skill called Star Trek Red Alert that I’d like to set off prior to speaking the alert.
unfortunately, executing Alexa skills is not available directly (you could put two devices next to each other and have one speak to the other)
