SmartThings Community

**Alex_Gallanis** · March 15, 2019, 3:24pm

So i’m having an issue with Echo Speaks. I have a WebCore piston that when its time for my alarm to go off it checks if i fell asleep in my bedroom or in my living room and then starts playing my favorite radio morning show on the Echo in the correct room. For some reason, when it tries to play on the Dot in my living room it works fine but nothing happens when it tries to play on the Dot in my bedroom. When looking at the webcore piston log it says everything happened properly and there was no errors, but it still just doesnt play. Any suggestions about what is going wrong?

**TheBearMay** · March 15, 2019, 5:27pm

First thing I check in these situations is the volume. Can’t tell the number of times the volume wasn’t what I thought it was.

**Alex_Gallanis** · March 15, 2019, 6:11pm

Yes I checked the volume first as well. 100%. Also i added a line to set the volume level to 100% because that was my first thought too but it still doesnt work.

**TheBearMay** · March 15, 2019, 10:32pm

Instead of Set level, try the setVolume command. I’d also set the volume before executing the Play command just to be on the safe side.

**Glen_King** · March 16, 2019, 8:18pm

This could be an issue with the Echo unit itself.
My living room Echo dot had a few months where it was less than responsive. It has been working fine since January,but prior to that it had that flakiness going on. A power off/on would always reset it to functionality for a few weeks.

**Danes** · March 31, 2019, 10:41am

Hello I have a piston set up so it sets off an alarm and alexa sends out a voice warning message and repeats every 10 seconds until the system is diarmed. have taken the alarm out for the time being as you can see in the picture but would like to know where it would be placed and how

This is all based upon a security breach Eg: a door opening whilst armed/away mode is set. It seems to work and she does loop but I would like the alarm to lower its volume or even stop until the voice message has completed and then resume and have all this in a constant loop until disarmed. Any help advise would be appreciated thanks.

**mebejedi** · April 7, 2019, 11:49pm

I ran across this. Haven’t tried it yet, but perhaps you can have Accuweather trigger an IFTTT call that starts this.

http://www.jezwalter.com/

[EDIT]

Here’s another possible way

https://forums.developer.amazon.com/questions/171923/how-to-use-a-wav-file-as-input-to-avs-sdk-rather-t.html

**Bruzr1** · April 21, 2019, 9:36pm

5 days in to ST so this is probably a basic question. Found this echo speaks which appears to do exactly what I want it to do. It’s installed and the test function works fine. But I can’t get the Classic app to do anything.

Instructions say it doesn’t need Webcore but most of the examples seem to use this. So do I need WC or not? If not can someone share a simple example eg I press a smart button and Alexa says “a button has been pressed”. Thanks in advance!

**Jani** · April 22, 2019, 3:29pm

If you have basic needs just to get something out from Alexa, then you can use Alexa smartapp in ST. You do not need Echo Speaks to get Alexa announce that your button has been pressed. When you want to do some serious shit you need webcore, echo speaks and a lot of time.

**Bruzr1** · April 23, 2019, 1:34am

Thanks @Jani!

**rontalley** · April 24, 2019, 12:15pm

If you are new to SmartThings and already figured out how to install EchoSpeaks then, I would use webCoRE for mostly everything. Even simple stuff. It works and has a backup function. You will lose local processing but that’s super limited anyway.

webCoRE should be the stock rule engine.

**Cbarth3** · May 15, 2019, 10:06pm

Well I had mine setup to announce when any window or door changed state, but I was playing around to see about changing to a chime and that didn’t work for me.

Tried the searchAmazonmusic and searchmusic with “chime” and neither worked.

Now can’t remember how to go back

**Hookem** · May 17, 2019, 9:17pm

When using any of the Speech commands, is there a way to have Alexa’s voice pause briefly in-between sentences or at a comma?

**tonesto7** · May 17, 2019, 9:23pm

how much of a pause?

If you are using WebCoRE you can use the executeSequence()
https://tonesto7.github.io/echo-speaks-docs/#/docs/devices/deviceCommands/actionCommands

**Hookem** · May 17, 2019, 9:45pm

Just long enough for the speech to sound normal. I’m using WebCoRE. Will check out executeSequence(). Thanks!

**tonesto7** · May 17, 2019, 9:56pm

Try using a period (.)

**Hookem** · May 17, 2019, 10:11pm

I’ve got it working. Seems the proper pause happens with the period. Thank you.

Echo Speaks Examples