Here we are on the eve of Super Bowl! Since the Seahawks aren’t playing I can enjoy the game (and the commercials)!
In Amazon news, you can now send SMSs from Alexa (Android phones only). I tinkered with this concept of sending AND receiving texts through an external source, but found out that Amazon had this in their roadmap so I abandoned it. I love it when Amazon saves me time from having to code!!! (don’t let the screen shot fool you…you are NOT doing this through Ask Alexa )
In Ask Alexa news, I was surprised with the outpouring of support for my announcement that I will be integrating @bangali Room Occupancy into Ask Alexa. This went from simply accessing the main device DTH to now having integration in Control Macros, Voice Reports and Room/Groups (in the next release). Again, I think this is ‘the next big thing’ with regard to tracking people within the house and controlling automations!
Also, while I haven’t found the person who sent me the $500 in bitcoins, I have put them to good use. Ask-Alexa.com is now SSL capable (i.e https)! Since 5-10 people install this app per week I felt it was a good investment and also supports some stuff I am working on.
In VERY exciting news, I have been working with @tonesto7 (of NST Manager fame) to include Ask Alexa in his "Community installer (Free Marketplace)’. In addition to the updates I have (and continue) to make to improve the update process of Ask Alexa, this allows a SINGLE APP installed in your IDE to manage all of your COMMUNITY developed applications. It has a very slick interface, and I am satisfied with the security it provides (i.e. it is managed by Tony so rogue ‘manifests’ of programs should NOT sneak in). This app MAY allow for future features, like ratings or even a system to monetize developer apps. I am pleased and honored Tony asked me to participate and I will be releasing my next version of Ask Alexa through this method. Don’t worry…you can still update the normal way if you so choose…either through manually copying of code from my GitHub, or your IDE/GitHub integration.
Finally, after some motivation to do some research by this post: How do I limit access to an Echo when I have multiple? I found there is a way to identify WHICH Alexa you are talking to. While this may seem trivial, think of this…you walk into a room and say “Alexa, tell SmartThings to turn on the lights in this room”, or “Alexa, tell SmartThings to turn off the lights in here”. While not magical, you can say that exact same thing in EVERY room and have a different reaction! And, going back to the post, in the future you can control WHICH commands work in which room through additional restrictions based on the echo being addressed. Just when I thought I have done all I can with Alexa I find new stuff (through motivation from the community) to keep expanding what it can do.
The pieces with the room occupancy additions will be released next week as mentioned about (hosted by the new community marketplace), and by the end of February I will have the speaker identification code in the app. This will be a MAJOR upgrade as the Lambda, Developer area AND IDE will need code changes. However, you will NOT have to uninstall and re-install the app…just update the code and all of your automations will work as they have.
Go football (I am not going for either team this year )