[RELEASE] Alexa Helper

[mxrugg]

Just want to provide some feedback, although mainly directed at SmartThings but I found this process of installing Alexa Helper to be very frustrating and most of it is probably even my fault for not reading the threads in entirety which is probably what I should’ve done in the first place but some of them have over a hundred posts so yea.

First I was directed to the thread below because I was very excited about running routines with my echo…

[DEPRECATED] 2015 Voice Assistant Run Routine FAQ--see 2017 FAQ instead

On October 1, 2016, Amazon added the ability to turn on a " routine" from Alexa. If you want to use that method, see the official support article. https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/210204906-Amazon-Alexa-SmartThings-Routines Note that the official method will not allow you to use echo to run any routine that includes a lock or a Smart Home Monitor armed state change or another device class that Alexa does not know. The method described below in this FAQ will, but it does require that you create a virtual switch. Although at present echo can only request that smartthings turn devices on, off or dim, by using a virtual switch, you can tell echo to turn that switch on or off, and then have all kinds of things happen in smartthings. For example, if you want to have echo tu…

I followed the steps/link for the virtual device and that was perfect and quick! Following that it brought me to the old Alexa Helper page linked below…

Alexa Helper - Change mode or phrase with a switch toggle

There is a new version available that uses a Parent/Child structure. Search the forums for the official Re-Release of Alexa Helper All, Here is a variation on my “Switch changes mode/phrase” app published by SmartThings. Right now, this is just a re-packaged version of the app that was approved about a month ago…just with an Echo/Alexa icon and wording; however, I plan to expand on this app later. This app allows you to trigger a mode change or execute a Hello, Home Phrase with the toggling of a switch. For example, if you create a virtual switch called “good night”, and tie that within the app to a “good night” phrase that locks the doors, turns off all of the lights and sets the temperature, simply saying “Alexa, turn on Good Night” would activate that phrase, doing multiple actions a…

So I then used that code to install it as a SmartApp and publish it and like one of the posts mentioned, I couldn’t do anything with it so I started reading into the last few posts for more details (which I should’ve done a head of time) and turns out the version I was using was deprecated and was then brought to this page!

I then attempted to delete the old “Alexa Helper” SmartApp from my “My SmartApps” section in the graph api site only to get the error that it cannot be deleted because one or more users had it installed. So the most painful path was then to check all phones, no one was using it so ok, then deleted the SmartThings app from all the phones and still same issue. So in the “My SmartApps” section again in the graph api site I went to the “Locations” column for that app and removed the location that was set. Tried to delete again and now got a 500 server error so progress lol. At that point I just said screw it and updated the code the app had with the new code on this page and saved then published it again. Also pulled over the “Helper Scenario” code as another SmartApp but only saved it per the instructions.

Following that, everything then started to go smooth again where I was able to easily expose the virtual devices to the echo from SmartThings and also use the Alexa Helper to setup the scenarios linking the virtual devices with a particular routine.

Hopefully this helps anyone else that might get stuck and slowed down like I was haha!

As much as this sounds painful, it might be best @MichaelS if you could please update the OP at the 2nd link I mentioned above (aka the Original Alexa Helper) to state a new updated version is available and link here to avoid anyone being stupid like me who did not thoroughly read through all the posts to realize a new working version was available!

It might even be helpful if @JDRoberts can update his OP at the 1st link I mentioned above (aka Echo with Routines) to indicate this page but of course if you make another version (aka another thread) then of course that link will be outdated again and same issue I went through unless of course you carry the link over!