[POLL] Alexa Custom Skills

[SBDOBRESCU (Bobby)]

Are Alexa custom skills obsolete? A custom skill must use an invocation phrase in order to connect to Alexa Voice Services. For many of us, using Alexa directly sounds weird, but when you add an invocation word on top, makes things even less desirable to use the voice assistant. Given the recent updates that Amazon pushed, namely calling /messaging features, feedback status on devices, etc.

Do you think the custom skills are a thing of the past?

• Yes
• No

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And if you answered ‘no’, then what do you think makes a custom skill most useful?

• Free text messaging
• Control devices with more natural voice commands
• Status Feedback that expands beyond what Amazon offers
• Integrating Alexa with non-Alexa devices (like Sonos speakers)
• Other

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[JDRoberts]

And our house, we use the harmony custom skill all the time. “Alexa, tell Harmony to switch to channel 42.” You get used to it.

[jasonrwise77 (Jason)]

And our house, we use the harmony custom skill all the time. “Alexa, tell Harmony to switch to channel 42.” You get used to it.

JD, I use it too and love it. TV on/off volume up/down change channels, what more could you want!

[SBDOBRESCU (Bobby)]

what more could you want!

Not to say ask Harmony…

[whyintheworld]

For one of our three hubs, we don’t have to say ask harmony with their new skill. We can just say Alexa turn on TV, Plex, etc… We also programmed the channels as favorites so we can just say turn on abc, cbs, etc… Volume is the only thing that requires the ask harmony key words.

For the other two hubs we do have to say ask harmony since Harmony themselves don’t support the multiple hubs yet. So yes, I’d love to have a new way to control alexa with no other skill words required… But then again, I’d like a lot of things…

[SBDOBRESCU (Bobby)]

But then again, I’d like a lot of things…

If you install EchoSistant you could say Alexa, turn on the TV in (location of your 2nd and 3rd hub). For everything else I use direct Harmony integration.