Welcome to another Friday!
As I start to wind down the year, look back at everything that has been done in the world of home automation. Not just with Ask Alexa (we will get to that in a moment), but just from Amazon and Google. I was reminded of this recently when an outdoor motion/light sensor went bad, and while waiting for a new one found how much my family relies on just the automation I have created. I have many lights set to react based on the brightness outside. With that gone temporarily, I had to go back to the 1950’s and actually pressing the switch on the wal Oh…first world problems! For those interested, I purchased the AeoTec Multisensor 6. I recommend these along with the DTH listed here: [RELEASE] Aeon Multisensor 6 (Advanced) Great work as always @erocm1231. I also updated Ask Alexa (main app) to 2.3.4a…simply use your GitHub/IDE integration to update. No need to update if everything is working find for you.
In automation news this week Google released their compound commands. Nice copy Google! I am sure this is coming for Amazon as well, and it already available via Ask Alexa! As cool as this sounds, the drawback of any compound commands is that the longer you speak to a device, the more opportunity it has to misunderstand you. That is why I limited it to two commands…when I did three I actually found myself tripping up Alexa by misunderstanding one of the devices I was attempting to control. Anyway, there are some people who love this new addition to Ask Alexa and think it is a game changer and I can’t be more pleased! Thank you to everyone that I worked with over the last week on improving the utterances. That is really the power of Ask Alexa…I don’t have to change the code to get things to work better. If you have a specific way of asking for something, a new utterance will probably take care of you! As such, please ensure you are using the latest utterances here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichaelStruck/SmartThingsPublic/master/smartapps/michaelstruck/ask-alexa.src/Sample%20Utterances
In addition, this week Amazon took a step closer to releasing notifications to developers. While some already have it on their accounts 
, it is currently in beta test. Since Ask Alexa has you create your own skill, even if I had it in my account, it would not work in any other account since it is dependent on the options in your skill (among other things). Amazon is slated to release it next quarter and Ask Alexa will utilize it when it is available!
Speaking of Ask Alexa, I was looking at my previous roadmap and already see that I am going to have to make changes as I sped up some of my plans for compound commands. So the next question, where do I go from here? As mentioned in my previous roadmap and some of my Friday updates, I have been looking at the installation process of Ask Alexa, which is where 90% of my questions seem to come from. Here is a perfect example from a new user which loved the application but didn’t like the installation: (Alexa home control with SmartThings? (Specifically locks)). Fortunately, she also pointed out that once you get past the installation, it becomes clear on how everything works. Once you have these items installed and working (and there are thousands of you) updating becomes a bit easier. Either way, the install process is a bear and I want to make it easier…and have been behind the scenes!
To improve upon the installation I needed to look outside of SmartThings; similarly to how apps like ActionTiles and WebCore went to external services to provide a better user interface, I will be using some external services to improve the installation process. This will take the installation process from a 3-step process (IDE, Developer Section, Lambda) down to 2, with the goal of having everything automated using the APIs available to developers. This will NOT change how Ask Alexa works, and you won’t even need to do a re-install of all of your macros/extensions. An IDE upgrade will do it all! I hope to have something released before the end of the year, and some beta testers are already testing this for me, giving me some great feedback! The only drawback is that this now crosses the line in being a funding model as I am purchasing a domain and server compute power external to SmartThings. However, I have made the decision to use the donations I have made in the last two years to fund this for the community! While it is NOT required to send a donation, sending one in the future will not just go to caramel popcorn as it did before :)…it will go to supporting the improvements to Ask Alexa! I receive donations at least once a week, so be sure to thank your fellow community members as they are keeping this project alive and always updating!