It is coming from what I hear…just not clear WHEN.
One feature that is just being discovered today is the intercom feature. It is something that is ‘almost’ there for real time alerting. I don’t have it yet, but it appears it (or will) allow calling between Alexa devices. That is HUGE…No more having to do a STT to TTS to relay a message. If they are smart they will implement a function like the message queue where if the other end is not available you have the ability to record a message (I.e. Leave a voice mail message). If they don’t have it, I already have it on my roadmap to be able to leave messages (text…no recorded voice) in individual message queues. And, while it doesn’t appear push is going to happen with this, Ask Alexa will allow you to push messages to the queue and then be alerted in a variety of methods that you have a message waiting.
Big game changer today from Amazon!
1 Like
Very excited when that goes live!
Not a dev, but this could be some fun changes to Ask Alexa;
I take it this is messaging between differents home, unique accounts, with Alexa and not multiple units is the same home?
Looks like it. I was wondering that myself.
I actually have that on my VERY long term roadmap as it fits will with the personalities that I set up last year. Good call!
I have the same question…will see when I get home…if it is interahome, that is a HUGE game changer as well…
This new voice feature is really pretty cool!
I just tried calling one echo in my home from another echo and it did not work. It looks like calling only works from the alexa app on a device to all the echos on the account (all will ring but only the one you accept the call on picks up) and the other way round.
If one was to create separate accounts for each echo in a home I could see that calling between the different echos would be possible.
Also, you can send voice messages to the message queue for the echo account that can be played on the echo.
I actually have a use case where one of the bedrooms is ‘isolated’ from the rest of the automation for guests. So this is perfect. You can bet they will turn that one at one point if they can designate speakers within an account. This is necessary for any sort of push functionality as well.
Edit to my previous post: if you say “Echo call Home” to an echo , all the other echo devices in the home on the same account will ring and you can pick up on one. You can then have a 2 way conversation between the two echos in your home.
Oh…cool…Game Changer then…I no longer have to code any STT TTS…Is there the equivalence to a ‘voicemail’?
The “Echo send message to…” feature is equivalent to voicemail but it only works for contacts, not for HOME ( echo said, it cannot do it. )
Interesting. Without push, however, this is not a killer of Ask Alexa. On the contrary, the message queue, with its ability to push messages to speakers (external) really compliments the voice aspect with adding ‘alerting’ of events. When the new scheduling extension is released, this will be yet another function that Amazon does well, but Ask Alexa does better.
What a great day for home automation.
Time for another Friday update, and boy has it been a heck of a week…especially for our little friend Alexa. First, everyone saw the ‘Show’ and hopefully put in their order (I have two coming). While I think the specs were fantastic and I can’t wait to get it, I was MORE impressed when I updated my Alexa App on my phone and got to use it to make a call. I am not impressed by much at this stage of my life, but I had to say WOW. How many times does a product IMPROVE over its lifetime? My expectation was actually that I wouldn’t be able to make a call without buying the latest hardware. And then Amazon blows me away with a software update that gives me a brand new capability to my ‘old’ device. This is like buying a car, and then an update suddenly gives it wings and you can fly…with NO further investment of upgrade of hardware. Again, I am not impressed by much, but bravo Amazon! And, the ease of it….Alexa, call Michael…bam…done…This is easy enough for my parents to have one.
Many of you have written me privately and asked what this does for Ask Alexa and the roadmap I laid out. Frankly, it changes nothing as I anticipated these changes. I still expect push notification at some point, and the call feature update shows that alerting can be ‘gentle’ and non-disruptive. In fact, if Amazon can get intra-home communications working by naming individual devices within an account, it will be small step to push notification as that same logic applies.
With the calling features enabled, I see messaging being a huge part of Ask Alexa’s roadmap. It has always been my philosophy to not just replicate functions that Alexa can do natively, but to give a value add to those functions…Yeah…Ask Alexa can turn on lights…big deal…so can the native integration…But can the native integration give you a whole house report? Can it tell you when the batteries are low in your device? Can it set up complex macros to interface with CoRE, Device Manager, NST Manager, etc? Nope…Ask Alexa can! Using the philosophy and looking at the call function, messaging is great…but it is ALL or nothing currently. Ask Alexa’s Message queues allow for individual mailboxes so each person have get THEIR messages. Taking this individual concept higher, the next big addition to Ask Alexa will be scheduling. A few beta testers have said I have created a real game changer here…A VERY dynamics scheduling system that is tightly integrated with the Message Queue to allow REAL TIME alerting to events in your life. Get reminded of annual birthdays, monthly appointments, and even one time events with either connected speakers, text messages, or messages placed in your individual message queue for the next time you check in (or real time alerting with external speakers).
From there, we start the path of creating a queue to queue messaging system, along with something I hope to announce in mid-summer that breaks the bounds of what has been done in any other app. It will probably be a paid service since I am standing up some services within Amazon’s AWS environment, but for those that thought they relied on Alexa now….just wait!
Enjoy!
8 Likes
I am getting the same message even though AA will list the doors as available devices. I am sorry but I am not understanding the response above.
This thread is rather long…when you are saying “I am getting the same message…”…which message are you referring to? Can you tag the message you are referencing?
And this is what we have been waiting for…may be as close as we get to push notification:
Of course, Ask Alexa will be utilizing this with the already existing Message Queues! Already added the GUI placeholders into my apps for the next version.
4 Likes
Michael,
I am having an issue with the latest version. I have updated my Lamda to Version 1.2.5. I have updated my Ask Alexa app Amazon Interaction Model settings including adding the new LIST_OF_MYQ and LIST_OF_MYQCMD slots. I updated my SmartApp to the latest from your repo, Version 2.2.5a, saved and published it to myself. When I attempt to test it using my Echo, it flashes and stops. My Live Logging shows the following error:
groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: java.lang.Boolean.contains() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.String) values: [Primary Message Queue]
Possible solutions: toString(), toString(), toString(), notify(), toString(boolean) @ line 2622
Did I miss something in my upgrade?
This was due to a variable change in my code. My bad on this…if you go into the message queue extension area and set all four of the items to the Primary Message Queue, then press Done and then go back into that same screen and remove them (or keep them based on your preferences) that SHOULD fix the problem.