All of a sudden, or has it never worked? If it is something that just happened, wait 24 hours…it means Amazon or SmartThings may be having some sort of issue.
Let me know…
Micheal,
Thanks for the upgrade… solved all my duplicate Routine issues! This is awesome code… I really appreciate all the work you’ve done for the ST community.
One note: My routines worked as expected after the upgrade but my echo always responded, “There was a problem with the requested skills response.” I was searching through past releases and noticed that you recommended increasing the timeout setting to 4 seconds - that did the trick! Thanks again.
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Glad this is working for you!
I’m having issues with reports, as in, I can’t get them to work at all. I created a report called “what lights are on”, but when I say, “Alexa, ask Skynet what lights are on”, all I get is “There was a problem with the requested skills response.” I’ve tried all manner of asking for various reports, but it never works. What am I doing wrong?
Did you update your JSON in the developer’s area after you created the report? If everything else works I would try that…If you try “Alexa, ask Smart Things for Help” does that give you information about the app?
Do we have to update the JSON every time we create a report?
Yes…While that may seem excessive, it is the way that Alexa knows what the report names are. It is recommended you create the reports you need THEN add them. Again, while it seems excessive, I haven’t updated my JSON in months for my production version as I have everything created and running. So, it is ONLY getting to that point where it is a lot of work.
Please note I upgraded the IDE code for Ask Alexa to 2.3.9e…something strange is going on at my hosting service that supplies the setup variables, so this new code fixes it. That is the ONLY change in this minor revision.
So, I have everything installed and working correctly. However, one question. Can I use askAlexa in conjunction with BigTalker2 to announce trigger events via the echos? For example, if my front door opens, Alexa will announce it.
Right now you can’t wake the Echo to speak. You can use external speakers like Sonos and that is built into Ask Alexa through the message queue capability.
Thanks for the reply Mike. That is what I thought, but figured I would ask in case I missed something, Hopefully Amazon adds tts support to Alexa in the near future.
@MichaelS - does this mean if I bought a Sonos One I could have this functionality?
Yes and no…It won’t wake up with the Alexa functionality, but if you add the Sonos portion to SmartThings you can use the message queue to accomplish this.
I recently upgraded my AskAlexa installation per the instructions at the top of this thread - I replaced the lambda code and the skill json code. In the SmartThings IDE, the apps are updated and published with the latest from MichaelStruck/SmartThingsPublic (master). I had AskAlexa working about a year ago but didn’t have any practical use for it but kept it installed. I wanted to upgrade now that you can use @bangali’s Rooms Manager app with AskAlexa.
When I test my AskAlexa skill via the Amazon Developer Console ‘Test’ tab, I can query devices and everything works as expected. But when I try and use it through an actual Echo device (e.g. “Alexa, ask SmartThings for help” or any other command), the response is “I’m not quite sure how to help you with that”. Nothing is logged in the SmartThings IDE live logging under ‘Ask Alexa’.
In my skills listing on the Amazon Developer Console the status is ‘In Development’ - not sure if that is an issue? Or the invocation I’m using: ‘smartthings’? (I’ve tried other invocations with the same result). My other custom skills on this account (all Amazon Blueprints) work as expected. Alexa is working as expected with smart home devices outside of AskAlexa. SmartThings itself is also working as expected.
What is the problem here and what are the steps to resolve?
These are the first things I would try:
Make sure your ARN is matched between the deployment area and Lambda
Make sure you are using the same account for you development as yoru devices
Make sure your have your correct appid and client id in you lambda
I have to believe all of these are correct if it works in the simulator, but just verify.
PM me if you are still stuck after checking.
Edit :The big thing is you need to do is have your innvocation word “smart things” . Not SmartThings… change I under Settings -Setup Ask Alexa and then upload your new JSON.
For anyone that stumbles upon an issue similar to mine where Ask Alexa works as expected when testing from the Amazon Developer Console but does not work when speaking to an Alexa-enabled device, double-check @MichaelS’s list of things to try first as listed above. If you still have issues, the solution for me was that I just needed to re-authorize my Amazon account from the Amazon Alexa mobile app (my Amazon password had changed recently). That’s all it was. Facepalms-a-plenty!
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Good catch!
Hello Guys,
This a very helpful app. I think I got it installed correctly, but for some reason the commands not working properly.
If I ask “tell smart things to list switches”, it is showing the list of switches I have (for example is shows “switch a”)
but if ask “tell smart things to turn on <switch a”>", it is showing "i had some problems finding the device you specified.
Not sure how to troubleshoot further. Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.
Make sure your innvocation name is smart things (two words) not SmartThings.
Hi Michael,
Yes, it is two words “smart things”. Invocation works perfectly, as it is mentioning the finding the device I specified, so I guess Alexa able to find the skill.