Question, when Alexa goes through the settings/modes, I hear this:
The current SmartThings mode is set to, ‘Home’. The current Smart Home Monitor status is ‘off’.
Curious why she doesn’t say the SHM status is “Disarmed”? When I look at the SHM dashboard, it has 3 status options (Armed-away, Armed-home, Disarmed). I have the following (which is from the setup page output):
LIST_OF_SHPARAM
arm
armed stay
armed away
disarm
off
good morning
good night
goodbye
im back
work from home
away
home
night
This is a quirk of the code…the internal setting when disabled is ‘off’ and I must have been lazy when I wrote the report routine to just pull the current setting without translating it to ‘disarmed’…I am finalizing the next version and will fix this in version 2.2.1.
no problem, I appreciate your continued enthusiasm for this project. You have been at this app for a while now. While some developers easily get burned out mid-stream coding an app (throw in the towel)… you made it to the end and are very active in allowing us to help you nit-pick the app which makes it even better!
I hope that ST inducts this app into the “Official Apps” list.
Does the alias setting change what Alexa calls a device? I have a multi sensor named “bedroom door sensor”, but when requesting the temperature from Alexa I would like her to just call it “Bedroom” instead. How can I do that? And do I actually have to rename the sensor?
So to get round multi sensors you setup an alias for each function. each alias need to be unique. so you can do that yes. add an alias called bedroom. Personally this could cause more issues as its too generic. but try it and see is the best. over time you
I went back into the Amazon developer website and update the slots to include the aliases and still when asking Alexa for the temperature she refers it by the device name. Help!
By default Ask Alexa calls the device whatever you called it in the alias…NOT the unlying device. For example, I did a test with my front door lock. It is REALLY called FRONT DOOR, but I created an alias for it call FRONT DOOR DEVICE. When I ask its status it says (right from the Log):
5:47:54 AM: debug The front door device is currently locked.
The aliases have to be in the List of devices slot in the developer site. Please note that if you already have a device called or similar to “bedroom” you will have issues using the alias. All device names, real or alias, must be unique. Watch the live logging as it will give you a clue to what it is hearing.
Edit: As a test I named the alias ‘blah’ and changed the slot name…
5:53:23 AM: debug The blah is currently locked.
One thing to try is to remove the old name from the List of Devices if it is no longer used. Best practice is to run the setup variables and simply copy what is given to the Amazon Developer Slots instead of just editing them manually.
Next if you want a switch to be an alias, first go into the categories in the main menu and choose Switches/Dimmers. A new section should be available that allows you to define WHICH items you want as an alias (http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Interface_Items). If you want to assign aliases to other devices, find the specific alias area under each category of the main menu.
Finally, on the main menu you take the items you defined above and create an alias name for them. You WILL need to run the setup variables again to get these names into the developer slots, but once you do you should be able to reference the device with the alias name.
Hello, I’m new to Ask Alexa, so I apologize if this has been covered.
I’m curious – when configuring voice reporting and you allow for an empty report – has anyone figured out how to get a response, “All switches and dimmers are off” or “All devices are off,” rather than no response at all?
That is a ‘summary report’ which is (admittedly) missing…I am working on the next version and while it may not make it in there, I have added this to the roadmap.
Good suggestion! I will keep you in the loop as to ETA.
Hi, I recently enabled message queue on ask alexa and now it tells me I have xx messages in the message queue, but when I tell alexa to play (or delete) the messages she doesn’t understand me. Am I supposed to add something in the custom slot types? or there’s something else I haven’t enabled? TIA
HI @MichaelS, I’ve got an odd intermittent issue with ask alexa.
I have a macro set up to run some things and then returns a custom phrase: “sleep well”. Sometime this works and sometimes it says something like “there was a problem with the specified Lambda response”. The macro still runs fine though.
This is a timeout between Amazon and SmartThings…I am on a bus now but check the troubleshooting section of the wiki for increasing the timeout to 20 seconds.
