Left Open app and Alexa integration

I have created a Left It Open smartApp as well as 4 virtual switches (one for each door). Using the app I created 4 instances of the Left It Open smartApp (one for each door and virtual switch combo). I am getting notifications from the app about the door being left open. I now want to tie that into Alexa and get voice notifications from all of my echo’s announcing when a door is open. If getting notifications from all echo’s isn’t possible I have one central one I would like notifications from.

Can anyone help me out?

You can do this with the “routine“ feature in Alexa, and you will have the option of getting the voice notifications from any of your echo devices you want to use for any given announcement, including all of them.

This integration worked great right up until April 2020 when they introduced a new Alexa skill for smartthings and it became somewhat glitchy. Usually it works OK, sometimes it stops working for a few days. So don’t use it for anything critical, but it’s fine for convenience use.

See the community FAQ:

FAQ: Can I trigger an Echo Action without Speaking to It?

I saw the routines, but none of my virtual switches show up in the Alexa app when I am creating the routine (but they are there otherwise). Is this part of the glitchyness?

No.

Read the FAQ. :face_with_monocle: At the present time, switches cannot trigger an Alexa routine. Only sensors can. So most people use a virtual device which is both a switch and a sensor. If you turn on the switch, the sensor shows it’s open. If you close the switch, the sensor shows as closed. That makes it easy to control from the smartthings side while still triggering the Alexa side.

But again, this is all detailed in the FAQ, including the link to sample code for this kind of virtual device.

I’ll go look through it again, I thought that was the same FAQ I had looked at earlier today but I obviously overlooked something. thanks

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