Welcome to my Friday update, now early as I head to Seattle again to install more home automation items and to see the Seahawks (in that order, unfortunately, this season).
The big news as can be seen all over the board is this:
This was a long time coming! However, users of Ask Alexa have already filled my mailbox with two questions: First, the common one and the one I get every time a new feature is released: What does this mean for Ask Alexa. Second, how can I use this new function with my current environment.
The first one is rather easy to answer. Nothing changes for me except my roadmap. Granted, this functionality takes away from SOME of the Ask Alexa functions like querying certain devices (and Ask Alexa still has an advantage with groups of devices and reporting), and some of the functions of the message queue. I use Ask Alexa EVERYDAY for something that native Alexa can’t do. However, I do see a day I can happily retire Ask Alexa…Not for a while, but they are on the right track. Until that day, keep the donations and suggestions coming.
As for the second question, I will use a question from @secureIT as a good example. Franklin e-mailed me that the new functions were great, but didn’t cover his use case for his presence sensor alerting him, that only motion would do it. Well, as always, WebCore can come to the rescue. Basically, syncing the status of his presence sensor (or in his case, his wife’s) to a virtual motion sensor, you can toggle the status so that Amazon can key off of it.
In another thread @JDRoberts mentioned this DTH as a way to accomplish this:
But I can’t confirm it works until I load it up (if it is still available). Either way, I probably will be adding a virtual motion sensor to the Alexa Virtual Switch Creator ([OBSOLETE] Alexa Virtual Device Creator (Formally Alexa Virtual Switch) Creator) to make some of the creation of these virtual devices easier.
Again, there are probably a LOT of different ways of accomplishing the same thing, but everyday Amazon comes out with tools to make automation (and now voice prompting) a bit easier.
I will be out of pocket the next new days…Enjoy the new toys delivered by Amazon!