While it is cool to have the Alexa devices light up green when a new message comes in, I belive that flashing lights only in the room where the message is intend for, is more noticeble. As a custom skill, EchoSistant has been doing that for a few months. The person in the specific location has a few choices to play the incoming message. One can ask Alexa to ‘play the message’, or just simply ask Alexa ‘what’s up?’
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I was kind of under the impression that this was a possible thing to do. I’m in no hurry though. How can I find out if/when this will be possible to do?
Oh, more than likely I will be shouting it from the roof tops when it happens. Even Amazon has TV ads showing this functionality right now…so it is close.
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From my understanding, these notifications won’t automatically play. Meaning that the user would have to prompt Alexa to play pending notifications.
Is this correct? Is there something I’m not understanding?
It isn’t released yet, but all indications are that only a tone and a light might be given…no direct message or Alexa talking without being prompted.
If that’s the case then I don’t see this as a suitable solution.
When a door is opened, I’d have to ask Alexa to play the notification in order for her to tell me a door opened?
I’m more interested in having Alexa tell me the door opened without having to ask to play notifications
Currently, the only solution if you want to have Alexa as you ‘speaker’ is to pair it via Bluetooth to a device (like a phone or tablet) that is ‘playable’ via SmartThings. If you have a Sonos or some other synth device you can also use an App like big talker (with or without Alexa) to send status messages to these speakers in real time without having to ‘query’ for message.
Unfortunately, Amazon made this decision and Google followed that pattern. My guess is that these ‘smart’ speakers will never do what you are looking for. Ask Alexa is the closest to making this happen with its message queue options, but no developers have access to the tools to make the speaker start speaking in real time.
I was under the impression that Amazon was going to allow real-time notifications. I guess I will have to settle for the Bluetooth option. 
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If you want voice announcements in the near future then look for another device.
My guess is that Google Home will have this sooner than Alexa. It already has Chromecast Audio capabillities so it should already be possible to play an mp3 or other audio clip from a SmartThings app.
Mirroring to GH is the same as playing on Alexa via BT. Neither one allows the voice assistant to wake up without being prompted. And I don’t think that would change any time soon…
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You are wrong here. GH is a Chromecast Audio device so any app can connect to it and play supported audio formats on it without any user interaction with GH.
To be on the safe side I tried with LocalCast and it played an mp3 stored on my phone.
CC has an http API so I don’t see why it couldn’t be invoked from a ST app. I’m sure there are APIs to convert text to mp3 so dynamic content could also be played.
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I think you missed my point… Mirroring to GH does not involve its assistant…
I can Bluetooth to an echo as well… But that doesn’t wake up Alexa…
same for Google home
Sure, check this out…
I might miss the point. Why would you need Google Assistant for this use case? SmartThings detects a door was opened and plays a message on a speaker. No Bluetooth and no assistant should be needed.
How do you get assistance to announce directly on GH?
You can get the GH to announce from ST. That doesn’t involve the assistance on it. GH combines two things: the google assistant and basically a chromecast audio.
The dth and smartapps posted earlier rely on the chromecast audio component in the GH speaker. So when ST sends a notification, it’ll interrupt whatever is playing on the GH and play your notification.
Yes you can get the GH speaker to announce notifications, but not the assistant part of it. Basically it’s the same thing, you just cannot ask the assistant to read your notifications or something like this.
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You can now “broadcast” with Google Home. From the Google Assistant app you can “broadcast your message”, though I’m not yet certain how we might be able to leverage it from WebCoRE.
Here is one way with Google Home:
I’m using cast-web that @SBDOBRESCU mentioned. Although it requires a node server on a tablet or computer or router or something on your network, it’s works very reliably.
cast audio or video to all google homes, google minis, and chromecasts and chromecast audios! Pretty cool to have tvs as notification speakers if they have chromecasts.
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