[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

SmartApps & Automations Community Created SmartApps
61

@michaels excellent work, sounds amazing and can’t wait to give this a go. I’ll be sure to look up the donation link too.

Will this solution help in any way with multiple Echos. I’m building a new home and trying to incorporate the concept of an Echo Dot in each of the notable rooms (wired into my Sonos system for audio output), plus all the usual ST trimmings.

my dream would be to speak more naturally to the dot in each room, eg “Alexa, lights on” or off etc - ST presence would somehow give it context and know I’m in the bedroom and apply that to the logic. Beaconthings would know if I’m in a particular room??

I fear this type of control will be for Amazon to resolve; sounds plausible if they added the ability to apply a room context phrase to each Dot settings page; that could then preamble to all smart home controls - that would gain full wife approval for sure.

Anyhow, just putting it out there to see if others have similar thoughts or found other ways to achieve the target result.

Great work.

62

Gotta make sure it works :slight_smile: It will be soon!

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63

This is a common request, and there are ways to use my app to localize the echos, but it would require multiple Amazon accounts (one per room), and then you could get it work. My app DOESN’T require the SmartThings integration, so you get past that. Unfortunately, you then run into Amazon limitations of one skill per household instead of per device, if that makes sense.

This is an issue for Amazon to solve, I fear. If they do solve this, I purchase 3 more of these device and remove the Sonos’ from the bedrooms!

64

That would be great. I’ve got three echos and unfortunately the individual room control has to be with the way the devices are named, not with the Echo.

Though, if you were going to have an Echo device in each room, you could do this.

Each Echo gets it’s own separate account. Each Echo has it’s own dedicated ST hub (what’s another 99.00 per room right). That Echo and hub control only that room.

The drawback is that there would not be any whole house control… give and take right ?!?

65

I’m not an audiophobe… so, I’m not into the great big stereo’s. I like the way the Echo speakers play my country music… so, they act as my music players. Smaller wifi speakers act as my notification speakers.

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66

Was just messing with you. You’re doing a great job, no worries. Cannot wait to take it for a spin. Sounds awesome and I know you put a lot of effort into it…

67

Yep - trade off too great to go separate echo/hubs per room. I’m sure Amazon must be aware of the extremely cool threshold they’ve all got us hooked on - if they provide this level of control, they will sell multiple units per household and we’ll have our Jarvis!

Would love Amazon to also allow volume mic control so we can tune Dots down to only pick up voices within a shorter range.

I’ll pause my Javis dreaming for now.

Can’t wait to test this new app though, sounds just what we need. Cheers.

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No worries…if this were a work of art the paint would still be wet…just added one more device type before I release it!

69

See this link for my latest. Ok Google can send items to shared Wunderlist lists via voice command:

My ST 7" tablet integration

I could also perhaps specify lists via AutoInput, with the desired list as a regex item. So I could say “ok Google, add to shopping list rye bread” and that item would end up on my shared shopping list., while saying “add to chore list fix squeaky door” would put that task in my private chore list.

Just a brief explanation of why: ostensibly, wunderlist has integration with Google Now already. But it’s very limited. You say “Ok Google, take a note” and it puts the item in your wunderlist Inbox. That still leaves you with the manual task of moving that item from the inbox to the correct list. Not convenient at all, and in fact quite annoying. This Tasker profile eliminates that inconvenience.

70

RELEASED!

I wanted to let everyone know Ask Alexa has been release (version 1.0.0), There are some notes I would like to pass along (I hope you have all read the manual : http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa :slight_smile:

The naming of your devices are rather important. Be sure you don’t have an duplicate names you are trying to control (i.e. maybe a thermostat and switch both called “living room”.

The installation of this app is NOT as easy as copy/pasting from GitHub…there are multiple steps with both the ST IDE and the Amazon developer/Lambda site. The app attempts to make it easy by outputting all of the variable you need to put on the developer site…but, you have been warned it will take probably an hour to set up. And…any time you add or remove devices, reports, etc, you WILL need to run the setup again and populate the custom slots.

Now, with regard to support…I see a few distinct areas you may need assistance on. For me or the community to help, I will also let you know what WE need to troubleshoot it:

App simply doesn’t work. You believe you followed the directions and the app simply won’t run or you get the red bar at the top. This is typically because of a copy/paste error from GitHub…make sure you copy the RAW code per the instructions and don’t change a thing when you copy/paste them into the IDE. Be sure to SAVE and PUBLISH the parent app, and only SAVE the child app. To help troubleshoot this, you will need to provide screen shots of your Live Logging

App works, but it doesn’t respond to my voice requests. More than likely this is do to missing AppID or Tokens in the Lambda code. See here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Finalizing_The_Function_Code. To troubleshoot this you will need to provide screenshots of your Live Logging and possibly of your Lambda code. BE CAREFUL…if you expose your AppID or Token publicly people can control your device (potentially). You will also want to check your ARN to make sure you copied it correctly from the Lambda page to the Developer site.

App works, but it won’t control some of my devices Make sure your custom slots are filled and you use unique names for your devices. Also, ensure all of the sample utterances are copied/pasted from the RAW code from GitHub. To troubleshoot this you will need to provide Live Logging screen shot, shots of the app screens and shots of your Amazon Developer Page

App works, but the output is not correct (words like switch or thermostat are repeated).. Many of the responses are generic and assume you do NOT have switch or thermostat in the name. If this happens please let me know the device name and the type and I will either give you a unique solution (line number) of the code to fix, you rename your device (and run setup again), or I will modify the production code to accommodate issues/bugs in syntax.

As always, enjoy this app. Feed back is always welcome! If you get use out of it please consider donating to me at https://www.paypal.me/mstruck

13 Likes
71

Nice work Michael! Awesome Program! Way to go!

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72

This program is awesome! No more virtual switches for modes and routines!

My advice to y’all, add ALL of your devices during the install, even if you’re not sure you’ll use them…

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73

Can someone please ELI5 what this is for. I do not have an Alexa so it is unclear.

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This is for voice control of your home using Alexa. There is already basic integration between SmartThings and Alexa, but it only controls switches and thermostats and there is NO feedback to ask the status of the devices. My app expand the functionality to a truly two-way integration.

I will update the documentation a bit more in the beginning to address this important fact.

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75

So excited but I’m at work boooo… will have to wait until later grrr, good thing I did the prereq amazon setup!

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That is fine…it will be there when you get home…plan to spend an hour installing it if you have never worked with the Amazon developer web sites.

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I keep getting “java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method toLowerCase() on null object @ line 691”

and line 691 for me is:

if (tstats) tstats.collect{ result << [name: it.label.toLowerCase(), type:"thermostat", devices: tstats] }
78

Thanks for the info man.

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What kind of thermostat do you have?

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I have two. One is a honeywell and the other is 2gig z-wave.

Device Type is “CT100 Thermostat” for the 2gig and “Total Comfort API” which is a custom device type for the Honeywell.