Have you seen Ask Alexa, the follow up to this app? It will allow for finer control (and responses) from the Echo…
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Will Ask Alexa be able to trigger report in response to an event in addition to its voice request?
Unfortunately, no. The Echo, by design is a response only device. It will only activate when request…It can’t ‘wake up’ from any other event or trigger outside of a timer alarm, and those are not in the ASK functionality.
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I am having a heck of a time.
I have a virtual switch that I created called Night Mode.
But can’t trigger it via Alexa.
If I want trigger the. If her mode routine what would be the best practice for doing so?
Remember after you create a virtual switch you need to ‘discover’ it so the Alexa can hear it. You do this through the Echo smartapp in SmartThings…just click the device, click done, then say “Alexa, discover new devices.”
Let em know if that helps.
No it’s listed but when I say Alex turn X on nothing happens. If I trigger the same via the smart thing App it works fine
But is it visible in the Echo app at http://alexa.amazon.com? If not, you will need to discover it.
If you press the button in your mobile app and the condition you set up triggers, this means the app is working. The issue is the Echo understanding what “Night Mode” is…
Does that make sense?
“mode” is not recognizable by Echo or it is a reserved word. I tested against different words and settled on “Sleep routine”. So, I say “Alexa, Turn Sleep Routine on” and it works fine.
yes…in the Ask Alexa app mode is a device type you can query, but you SHOULD be able to use it nevertheless in a name…however, it might require the utterance to be changed…I will look at fixing this in the next version…but try this…try saying “turn on night mode mode” and if it works I know exactly where the issue is…
New issue for group/MichaelS (btw, your smartapp is awesome!)
Not sure if it was the recent hub update or something else on my hub/alexa helper/sonos integration but the sonos channel buttons do not work anymore. All other buttons within the alexa helper sonos speaker configuration work (previous track, volume) but I cannot change channels anymore.
Any ideas or anyone else running into this?
There is an issue with TTS currently and that is breaking anything in my apps that uses it. ST is aware of this, but to work around it see if you can disable the speaker telling you what song is playing…
Not even using the “speak song title” feature so cannot test possible workaround. You think it may all be related though, TTS issue and channels not working even if I do not use TTS?
Yes…due to another work-around for the Sonos I had to place in there that HAD to play text first (even if blank) before it would play a song by title…Not sure if they fixed that, but the whole speaker control system needs a new API, so I would encourage you to open a support ticket so they know the importance of the TTS system so you can get back to functionality.
Michael, fabulous work on the Alexa Helper integration with Smartthings. It took me a few hours last night and this morning to get setup despite your clear instructions. The final roadblock was not including the new switch within the Amazon Echo app within Smartthings. Seems like this is a pretty common mistake so be sure to point it out whenever possible!
One thing that still confuses me is how everything is integrated and which of the names is actually important.
For example, I have a ST routine called Night Mode that does something really simple - makes sure my girlfriend’s bedside lamp is off, and mine is on and dimmed.
I created a Alexa Switch called Night Mode. Then I created a Scenario called Night Mode (as well). In that scenario I have it activate the Night Mode switch and when that switch is On, it activates the Night Mode Routine.
This is pretty confusing to me. I tried it out by saying “Alexa, turn on night mode” and it worked. But, which Night Mode is it activating? The scenario? The switch? Does every scenario have to be tied to a specific Alexa or Momentary Switch? There also seems to be multiple ways to accomplish the same thing with this setup which further confuses me. For example, my Night Mode Routine turns off a lamp, turns on a different lamp and sets the level. However, it seems like when I use the Alexa Helper app, I can make a Scenario that controls the lamps directly, without needing to use a ST Routine, so why does it need a switch at all?
Thanks again for your hard work and good luck on your Amazon interview!
My interview was months ago, and it all worked out that I didn’t get it. It DID motivate me to learn to create a Alexa based skill instead of the way I did it with Alexa Helper (Which is through virtual switches). Before you get too committed to Alexa Helper, check out Ask Alexa…If you are not a programmer it will confuse you even further, but it is does work a little bit better in some regards.
Anyway, yes…the switches are confusing; At the end of the day the app is only calling switches…so anything else named Night Mode isn’t running…only the switch is activating; however, if you TIE that switch to other things called Night Mode they will run. Thinking of it as almost a macro, where a switch activates a mode or routine will probably help a bit.
Let me know if I confused you more or if that helps…
I am a software QA engineer and have coding experience so technical problems are not completely foreign to me. Is Ask Alexa a complete alternative/replacement for Alexa Helper? If so, I’ll switch over.
Quick question while I have you - I wanted to my Sonos speaker to report the temperature from my ST motion sensor. I setup a momentary switch then created a scenario. I set the pre-message to “The living room temperature is”
First, to activate it with voice is kind of weird - “Alexa, turn on check temperature”
This works BTW, but what it says back is “The living room temperature is motion sensor 73 degrees”
Is there any way to do something like “Alexa, what is the living room temp?” and have it say “The living room temperature is 73 degrees” and leave out the device name?
I’m off to setup Ask Alexa
Edit: PS sorry about not realizing your interview had long passed. I am glad it worked out in the end for you.
Ask Alexa is “almost” a full replacement, depending on what you do. To answer your question, yes…you can access the device directly via syntax instead of setting up a switch to then activate a result. You won’t be able to send the result to the Sonos, but it will come from the Alexa.
Question about Cloud Interface -
Is there any way to generate endpoint links that work via HTTP, as opposed to how Cloud Interface is currently setup which only generates links that use HTTPS?
I understand very well the security concerns with this, but I would not be using HTTP endpoints outside of my home network, where I can accept the risks of using non-secured transmissions.
I am trying to use curl to hit the endpoints your app generates, but even when I use the -k argument for curl, I get the error ““error”:“unauthorized”,“error_description”:“Full authentication is required to access this resource””.
Also, I noticed that Cloud Interface can generate on and off links (which just differ by the usage of on versus off in the URL), but Cloud Interface doesn’t seem to support the “toggle” option that can toggle lights on or off. Would it be possible to implement this?
This is actually are requirement from SmartThings…not me…you are accessing their cloud, technically, to get to your hub. The other option is to use IFTTT, but I think that is even HTTPS. The only other thing I can think of is a alias service that does a redirect (may tiny url?).
Let me know if that helps…
Regarding the toggle function I could certainly handle that…would that be helpful at the moment or longer term?
Thanks for clarifying! I know you’re busy with your other apps, so don’t worry about the toggle feature at the moment. Thank you!