I did change the code. And no, give me some credit, I am not an idiot. I changed the code on both accounts. We are in the same household via smartthings. So when I’m adding an app that does not allow for child apps, the same exact apps are showing up on their account. Before I did anything with their account, ask alexa was showing up on everyone elses account.
I know you are a bit upset, but to be clear, no one called you an idiot. We are just trying to help.
Either way, the way you originally explained it, that particular setting shouldn’t make any difference as it allows for the same app to be installed in the same account twice. If you have two different accounts, it really shouldn’t matter. However, if you are all using the same hub, that may be a different story, in which case, many of us have no experience with this unique configuration.
I am glad you got this work, nevertheless.
Thanks @MichaelS for bringing us such a great app and all your continued support to this community - it is the few of you brilliant coders that keeps us all going with the ST challenges !
Dave
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Any closer to figuring this out? We are here to help.
I was looking into this a bit more…but I want to understand if you need a report on the activity, or just to determine if the device is “dead”. With the new message queue, if you are looking for inactive devices, then @erocm1231 's app would be better suited to that and can now alert Ask Alexa. So, for that use case, I would probably say me putting that in would be a bit redundant.
If it is really about a report that lets you know the last time a motion or presence occurred, the current voice reports for these devices already do that, but not as you envisioned them. Currently there is the “report time of last event” and “report time of last arrival/departure” that can be turned on that don’t allow for thresholds, but do give the last time activity was registered on those devices.
Going forward I am going to be a bit more picky on what new functionality I put into the Ask Alexa as I feel it is getting a bit bloated and with the CoRE and Message Queue plug in functionality, you can now do and report on practically anything within your SmartThings environment. For those use cases that are truly unique I will always be the first to say include it!
So, I am not saying no to this use case…but it seems that most of this functionality is already present if one form or another…However, I am always open to being convinced!
Let me know.
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Hi Michael - just doing a full reinstall and noticed that Amazon developer console now asks about Audio Player :
Presume this is a ‘No’ for now ?
Thanks
That is correct…I still don’t actually understand the benefit of this new action, and while it doesn’t SEEM to conflict with Ask Alexa it doesn’t need to be turned on either…
I will update the documentation to reflect this as well…thanks for the reminder!
And the documentation is updated: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Skills_Information
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And I have completed and tested a full reinstall in 30 mins - not too bad ! Time for some more comprehensive CoRE integration. THx.
Excellent…I am releasing a new version on Friday that will have more integration with CoRE, allowing CoRE to send Ask Alexa messages for the new Message Queue functionality. Other apps are looking at integrating this functionality as well.
I bet you can get the re-install down to 15 min unless you mean configuring the SmartApp from scratch…then 1/2 hour is rather good!
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Look forward to that …
Thanks, I’m going to yank it all and start fresh, see if that resolves it
like you said. Haven’t had an opportunity to do so yet, but will update
when I do.
Appreciate the help.
Quite honestly, in my experience it is almost 99% unnecessary to ever pull and re-install…There are settings that are persistent within apps, but that is not related to the Lambda or Developer sites.
Not saying that going through the whole setup might not get it working, but so would keeping everything in place and just going through the directions step-by-step. Just saying.
Let me know your results…I am here if it still doesn’t work when you re-install.
I’d like to get your thoughts on the subject of naming conventions for devices.
With just the standard Alexa/ST integration we’d often get the response “I’ve found several devices named xxxxx…” Even sometimes when the specific devices was spoken correctly and fully (so, “Alexa, turn on master lights” even though we also have devices called “Master Closet Lights”). But I’m sure it was input error or better call it, input speed since I find if you say things too fast or too slowly Alexa will pick up only some of the words you speak.
We also have personal names which are non typical spellings and so we either need to misspell them in ST so that Alexa has them as the typical spelling or, well, suffer. Although it seems to get past how my kid’s name is spelled which is good.
With adding AskAlexa I’ve seen other issues (maybe it’s about the same but I notice them more). One good one is we have a wall switch called “Playroom Lights” for our, you guessed it, a room we call our playroom. Which if you say too slowly to an Echo or Dot, results in Alexa hearing “Play Room Lights”.
I keep rereading @JDRoberts good thread but it’s more along the lines of trigger words. But I know (actually that’s probably think) he uses the Alexa like we do (that is more than the mobile app).
With all the work you’ve done on AskAlexa, I’m curious as to what your thoughts are for best practices when naming devices in an Alexa/ST world (where one uses Alexa far more often to initiate commands than the ST mobile app).
Good questions…To be honest this has a lot to do with what you want to accomplish. I have a house with over 60 devices, but I don’t have all of them controllable by Ask Alexa…I use it mostly to get the status of certain items and mostly to run reports or run macros that do a LOT of tasks.
I say this because many of my devices are similar in names. So if you want to control every device in your house you should come up with a good naming convention that a) does not sound like another device b) have a unique name c) keeps the syllables of the name below 3 and d) has names that don’t have two pieces of other device names in them. For the last one, if you have a switch called “Livingroom Light” or “Livingroom lamp” it could get confused, not only because of Living Room vs Livingroom but the similarity (at least from a TTS perspective) of light and lamp.
At the end of the day, the idea of controlling every aspect in a household, at least individually, is actually rather impractical. Instead, you should be very ‘strategic’ about what you want to do with your Alexa and only include items that are going to be accessed daily and ensure they are named so that there is no question what you are saying.
This feels like a non-answer, but while there are good tips about the naming, each situation is unique and requires a lot of testing to see what works based on the names of the devices and (actually) any accent you might have.
Actually this is very helpful. The 3 syllables makes good sense. I also really need to look into the reports because I think that’s important. And yes, we have only some that we want to have Alexa control but keep in mind if that one item we want to have control directly thru Alexa also happens to be similarly worded to a device that it doesn’t control I may still have issues.
But I do need to think about this more and want to have a strategy as I had more devices and incorporate more Alexa responses.
The 3 syllable part is actually from Amazon as one of their recommendations. But overall, you are correct…an overall strategy will be very important…from the innovation word to the name of your devices.
Good luck!
Oh yeah, I just realized it has been very quiet this weekend. No weather announcements or any other messages coming out of my Sonos…
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Ok, so, about a week ago my wife asked me if there was a way to program askAlexa so that she doesn’t have to say “Ask Home” to do something.
… and this is what I just did.
Now, note that we have created a whole slew of macros that are basically TTS. That is the majority of what we use askAlexa for. We have created pistons in CoRE that do different things and we use askAlexa to trigger those pistons.
Example:
askAlexa Macro: Chris to come downstairs
CoRE Piston: Chris come downstairs
Currently - Me: Alexa, ask Home to tell Chris to come downstairs.
Alexa: Chris has been told to come downstairs
The CoRE piston turned on some lights and announced of Chris's speaker that he was wanted downstairs.
What I did was this…
I created a second install of the askAlexa smartapp in ST.
I created a second install of the Lambda code with a different name.
I created a second install of the AWS developer setup.
I gave this install the invocation name: Chris
So, now the interaction is like this:
Me: Alexa, tell Chris to come downstairs
Alexa: Chris has been told to come downstairs.
Yes, lots of programming and setup, but once it’s done… awesome!!! Plus, I can create a new install from scratch in less than 30 minutes.
I’m going to create one for each of the kids in the house… I’ll keep the “Home” install for doing things with the HOME, but for each kid, or person, there will be an individual install.
Oh, and the great thing… I can create one piston in CoRE and use it in each install if I want to. I just add another trigger in the IF block and separate each one by OR.
Edit: Yes, I had to change the askAlexa smartapp code for the multiple install. But, the great thing is when I am done with all of my installs I just change it back. When @MichaelS pushes an update I just update the one code and all of the smartapp installs are updated.
Edit #2 - I also added two lines to the code so that I can name each install of the smartapp… gotta keep it organized!
@SBDOBRESCU - I thought you might like to know that this works great!
I’m using one Amazon developer and Lambda account for this on one ST hub.
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