[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

I think that is great! Wonderful testimonial (I hope) to the processes I have set up.

However, to be clear, I have NOT added the room occupancy to the version that is publicly available. I continue to work on it, and there is a chance it will be released next Friday, or worst case, the Friday after. That being said, when I get a working version would you be interested in beta testing it?

Also, the documentation is not ready yet, but there are going to be 4 ways you can use the occupancy. Let’s say the sensor is {Room}

  • Alexa, Ask SmartThings about the {Room}…this will give you the occupancy status
  • Alexa, Tell SmartThings to set {Room} to Vacant…will set the room to the value you give it
  • Alexa, Tell SmartThings to run {xxxx}…where xxx is a Control Macro and one of the items you can control with the other items in the macro is the occupancy device(s)
  • Alexa, tell SmartThings to run {house report}…house report is a voice report name that will now be able to query various items within the house, including the occupancy sensor.

Hope that all makes sense.

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Perfect sense. Thank you!

Yes - It was intended as a compliment, I chose to read the instructions top to bottom, where I really only needed the upgrade section at the end. had I chosen to skip down there I would have been up and running in ~5 minutes.

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Nathan,

Sent you a PM…

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Is anyone else having a problem with getting Amazon to update the Sample Utterances? I keep getting this error: Error: There was a failure saving the intent schema or sample utterances

Yes…When I attempted to update the slots directly AFTER going from the beta interaction model to just the normal screen…Ironically, using the interaction model beta builder seems to work. Did you go back and forth between those screens? Or have you never used the beta interaction model? If not, then that is definitely an issue at Amazon.

Yeah–not sure what the beta interaction model is. So nope. I just went directly to update the Sample Utterances since there was a delta of one line with the one I was using (cannot remember what version).

I haven’t been able to update it because of the error.

Ok…that is definitely Amazon…I would open a ticket with their support organization. I just tried it and it doesn’t work for me either, but the interaction beta thing is working fine.

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 :slight_smile: )

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 :frowning: )

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Glad you got SSL on your web site now. Biggest mistake you could have made was to keep that open!

I am interested in the Free Marketplace, but when you say it is ‘secure’ what do you mean?

I will let Tony go over his app and the security. Also, I am assisting with the documentation and I put a section in specifically for security that will hopefully give users piece of mind. The apps DO show up in the IDE, so there is no issue with a developer ‘hiding’ code in what is installed to the user’s account.

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Is there any way to get alexa to turn lights off without saying, “Alexa tell smartThings to turn off my lights.” using ask Alexa?

Not 100% sure what you mean…If you have a light that you want to turn off you could simply do it natively by saying “Alexa, turn off {light name}”. If you want to do multiple lights you can either have a native group (“Alexa, turn off {light group}”). Ask Alexa can do this as well, but you must open the skill first (i.e. Alexa, tell Smart Things…).

Can you clarify what you are looking for? Ask Alexa can do everything the native Amazon stuff can do, plus run complex items and control/query things the native integration can not.

With the above in mind, I want to omit the “tell smartThings to” part of the phrase. This way it functions the same way as the native Alexa phrase. What I am trying to achieve is limiting the Alexa device to a sub set of smartThings devices while keeping the native Alexa phrases.

I’d be fine with a work around where I create a virtual device for Alexa to control, and then using webCoRE to create a piston that says “if Alexa Kids room turns on the ST Virtual Switch then run blah on ask alexa”.

I hope this makes sense. I haven’t installed Ask Alexa yet, so I really have no point of reference of the existing apps features.

I should have been a bit more clear…at the present time ANY custom skill will require what is called an invocation name. Ask Alexa ‘defaults’ to ‘Smart Things’ as the invocation, but you can change it to a room name or ‘home’ so it appears you won’t have an invocation (i.e. “Alexa, tell home to turn off the light”).

Now, that being said, there are ‘tricks’ to get things to happen without the invocation and still use Ask Alexa. The oldest is to attach a function to the Flash Briefing, which will give a report and can be tied to Ask Alexa to perform a function. However, you are limited to the word ‘flash briefing’. The other way is to create a macro or function within Ask Alexa, and then tie it to a virtual (or real) switch, and then have the native Alexa routines flip that switch. I use that to simply say ‘Alexa, good night’ and it runs a complex decision tree to determine whether to set my alarm and wake up the house in the morning (see the use case here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Good_Night_Weekdays.2FWeekends_.28Native.2C_Non-Invocation.29)

I hope that answers your question.

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@MichaelS

One of the challenges I am trying to overcome with Alexa to add to an Alexa Skill (other than yours) to automation routine.

To be specific, I have any Anymote IR blaster to send commands to my TV and DirecTV box. (This was before I found this wonderful community and learned all that Harmony could do. Haven’t gotten one of those yet) Alexa is able to interface with it via its AnyMote skill. What I want is a routine that can turn on my Smart WiFi Plug, which isn’t directly ST compatible but Alexa knows about it, and run the Alexa Skill to power on the DirecTV box using the AnyMote skill.

The spoken commands for this are “Alexa, TV on” and then “Alexa, tell Anymote power”. I would much prefer to do that via a command, such as a macro that AskAlexa can trigger. If a virtual switch is made in ST, can your wonderful App use that as a trigger to convince Alexa to do those type of commands?

Michael

Hi folks …

I have had Ask Alexa running for over a year and it works well. I would like to update my TV harmony to allow volume and channels. As I browsed this thread it seems possible. Can someone point me to where I should start to do this? It would take forever for me to find the right Post in this sea of over 4000 contributions. I have a Harmony working with ST but it only does on off and selects devices. Should I use KuKu or is there an easier way?

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It almost feels like the easiest solution is to find a plug that is compatible with SmartThings…then it would be easy. However, I am not sure of the process steps, but if Alexa sees it you should be able to put it in t routine with other things that ARE SmartThings compatible.

Am I missing the point? There may be a way to do it…worst case get an ST connected speaker, put it near Alexa, and then send the verbal commands one speaker to another :smiley:

The harder part is to activate the Alexa Skill. And I was hoping as your app interfaces with both ST and Alexa, it had a way to activate it. Never hurts to ask. It sounds like the answer is no. Oh well, it still works the “hard” way, just trying to find a solution around it.

No…think of a skill as an app and once you enter it you experience is self contained. Again, (and people HAVE done this) putting a speaker next to Alexa that can bark out commands might be the solution :slight_smile:

It sounds like Harmony is Alexa compatible. I don’t have one, but you can almost skip the SmartThings integration if it works natively. If you DO want Ask Alexa compatibility it almost sounds like this http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Using_Parameters_with_Ask_Alexa_and_webCoR would be a good place to start. It isn’t specifically for the Harmony, but MAY give you ideas of how to use Ask Alexa with WebCoRE to accomplish what you want.