[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

[bamarayne (Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)]

Why not using one of your hundreds of switches? I am sure you can find one to turn on briefly, so you can set up the routine.

Yeah, I thought about that. But what would the neighbors think… The back porch lights turn on, the house yells at the kids. The garage door opens, the house yells at the kids…

I can see it now… DCPS shows, rings the doorbell, the house yells at the kids…

[bamarayne (Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)]

you are going to something like a Sonos, right? So yes…you could do this…but a virtual switch is probably the best way to do it…There is nothing wrong with virtual switches…they are needed sometimes (with the current platform).

Virtual switches aren’t really an option anymore…

Though, I have four free buttons on the Minimote!

[bamarayne (Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)]

EDIT…and I found it…will implement in the next version

You wouldn’t mind telling me what that is would you?

[bamarayne (Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)]

just a quick question/advice on how the motion report is working.

I have a motion device called “dog food” which is mounted on the inside lid of their food bin - that records movement whenever one of us feeds them - all good.

I have an AskAlexa report called “dogs” - I might change that name but its good for now for testing.

when i ask Alexa, she responds - all mostly good.

maybe its how it works to be more flexible with other use cases but I’m wondering if the actual Alexa response in my case can be slimmed down.

She currently responds as follows:

Me: Alexa, ask home to run ‘dogs’ reportAlexa: As of %time% Dog Food is reading no movement. The last movement event within the monitored group was the Dog Food sensor at %time%.

would be great if i can skinny that down to just.Me: Alexa, ask home to run ‘dogs’ reportAlexa: Dog Food movement was last recorded at %time%

I only have one sensor in that report so hoping it can skip the monitored group part. I know I can control the As of %time% part as thats within the SmartApp.

is this possible?, if not, no biggy, just trying to make it more natural.

cheers

I might have just the thing for you on this. I have the same use case as you and wanted something a little more smooth.

I sent @MichaelS everything I did on tonight. If he likes he will let me know.

I’m not going to share any changes I make to his code without his permission and blessing first.

I’ll let you know if it passes his muster.

[storageanarchy (Barry)]

Yes, it’s a corner case - most devices will update their battery status as soon as they are installed. In this case, the Spruce Sensors communicate ONLY changes at a max frequency of 10 minutes so as to minimize battery consumption (they are designed to be installed in your yard, to let the Spruce SmartApp know what the water content is in a given zone).

If the initial notification is “missed” by SmartThings, then it turns out that the value will not be updated until the battery level drops below 100% (could be a long time - hasn’t budged in over 2 weeks), and there’s no way to “force” an update.

So…not a priority, and no real practical use case - I’d just rather not hear about null% batteries

[bamarayne (Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)]

@storageanarchy

So…not a priority, and no real practical use case - I’d just rather not hear about null% batteries

Have you tried selecting a different device, unselecting this one and saving.
Then, just reverse that back to the original.

Who knows, it might work.

Also, I ran into this last night with a sensor. I changed the DTH to this,

[RELEASE] Universal Virtual Device Type and Translator

This has got to be the sickest DTH ever… The uDTH Ever wished you could turn on a presence sensor with a switch?, or maybe take a lock command and send a motion event? Basically this bad boy accepts these commands: on off open close lock unlock and can turn them into these attribute states: open closed present not present active inactive The following capabilities are presented on the command side: switch door control garage door control lock The following devices are presented on the attribute side: Contact Motion Presence Door Acceleration Illuminance Smoke Water Sound You wire up an instance of this device to two separate apps, and off you go. Add to your repo, and select the device MikeMaxwell : uDTH the repo is owner: MikeMaxwell name: dth [image] [image] [image…

You can then actually turn the dth on and off. It will show as an action. Then change it back and your null will be gone. (Hopefully)

[MichaelS (Micheal)]

Standard Java nomenclature…deviceList.FindAll(deviceList.count(it) >1).unique()

Basically it gets the list and exports just the ones that are repeated. I take this list and then build in an error section telling you what the names are…pretty neat.

[ady624 (I hate Mondays)]

FindAll or findAll ?

[MichaelS (Micheal)]

I stand corrected…findAll

[zala (Martin)]

AskGoogle anyone. Go check out Googles IO keynote - new Google goodies on the way for Home Control.

I’m sure @MichaelS will knock something out by the weekend - seriously it raises the bar on natural voice interaction, let’s home Amazon hear that and raise their game, that will only benefit AskAlexa.

Cheers.

[eibyer]

Correct…the steps will be the same…however, it will ONLY be the slots that change.

I will update the document to reflect the order in which the items should be added (top to bottom).

My first time updating my installation. So if I’m understanding this correctly, update the code in reverse of install?

[esteban1193 (Esteban Gottfried)]

i am trying to install the Ask Alexa app. But before I do i want to be sure I am doing right. When I chose the SM devices for Alexa to be discovered, these included the devices there were already discovered by Alexa through the Phillips hub. The result is that I have duplicates with the same names as discovered devices,(All the bulbs). To avoid getting alexa telling me “there are several devices wuth that name”, I didnt mark in the past the bulbs that alexa discovered directly from the Phillips hub.
What should i do? If I dont let the bulbs be connected to alexa through ST, could I still installand use the HUE bulbs on the ask alexa app?

thanks

[MichaelS (Micheal)]

Not sure it matters…I would still upgrade the Lambda code, the Smart Apps (on the IDE) so you can run the setup, then the Developer site top to bottom…that should work.

[MichaelS (Micheal)]

Esteban,

The native SmartThings integration has nothing to do with Ask Alexa. In fact in the future, Ask Alexa may be good enough to completely replace the native integration.

There IS a issue with two switches, for example, having the same name…Alexa can’t tell which one you are referring to…everything within Ask Alexa has to have a unique name…

Does that make sense?

[MichaelS (Micheal)]

I fixed this in the version that will be released soon.

[N8XD (I got a hair cut from Alexa)]

I got one of these Amazon AWS IoT buttons to work with the Ask Home smart app. I bet it will work with Ask Alexa’s smart app too. Did anyone get one the IoT buttons and get the push button/email demo working? You can make the push button do anything you Ask Alexa to do. We can take it to another topic if you want to try it out. You don’t modify any of the Ask code, only the push button code to call the Ask smartapp. It doesn’t talk, but after performing the actions, it can send an email to you with what Alexa would have said.

[Todd_Whitehead]

Okay. I updated to the latest code and while I was in there, I set my trigger to be “jarvis”. Now I can say, “Alexa, ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to turn on the Kitchen Table!”

[MichaelS (Micheal)]

If only the voice could be changed to one of the Ivona voices (English Brian sounds close to Jarvis).

[Todd_Whitehead]

Yeah. I figure we’ll get that option eventually…

[dshokouhi]

In the meantime switch it over to “F.R.I.D.A.Y.”