[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

Hey Michael,
Great job adopting the extension plug ins. We’ve been doing that for a while in ES and it really gives the user flexibility. They can choose what features they want and not be bogged down by those they don’t. And, it gives the ability to expand almost no limit!

Keep up the great work!

Hi there! Ask Alexa is a great app, but I’m having some trouble setting it up and I have a couple questions.

I have a Generation 2 Multipurpose sensor I’m using a garage door sensor. This shows up on the SmartThings app and is working correctly. Should this show up as an Alexa smart home device? Its not and I’m not sure if its normal or part of the issue.

When I try to test the the app I get the following response:

Alexa ask SmartThings for help

The remote endpoint could not be called, or the response it returned was invalid.

and

Alexa ask SmartThings about garage sensor

{
  "response": {
"outputSpeech": {
  "type": "PlainText",
  "text": "There was an error with the Ask Alexa SmartApp execution. If this continues, please contact the author of the SmartApp. "
},
"card": {
  "content": "There was an error with the Ask Alexa SmartApp execution. If this continues, please contact the author of the SmartApp. ",
  "title": "Lambda Error",
  "type": "Simple"
},
"shouldEndSession": true
  },
  "sessionAttributes": {}
}

If it was just a a problem with the sensor setup I’d expect the first command to work? I’ve done some research and re-copied and compared the source code 3 times to make sure it was correct. I’m researching further but I’m not sure how to troubleshoot the second issue further.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, thanks much!

First, thanks for the compliments!

Second, is this a new installation, or was it working and then stopped? It SOUNDS like it is a new installation and I will speak from there; however, if it stopped working. It sounds like your Oauth is not working properly. First, I would ensure you have authorized your OAuth by following these steps:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#OAuth_Setup

Then, I would go into the app and ensure you see an Access Token/Application ID in the About Ask Alexa (main page of the app).

Finally, I would go to Setting>>Setup Variables to copy the required code lines into your Lambda code: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Finalizing_The_Function_Code

This probably has nothing to do with your sensor as the main app isn’t working/configured properly. I have heard reports of this being ‘wonky’ and sometimes you have to go in and reset your OAuth (under Settings in the main app) to resolve this.

Let me know if you get this working or need clarification on any of the items above. You are actually rather close to getting this working.

It is a new installation. I think the issue was due the shard I was using. I read that publish ‘for me’ is local to a shard, and it seems like I was connected to a number of different shards when I was trying to set up the app. I’m guessing the ‘correct’ shard is the one my hub is connected to, which https://graph-na02-useast1.api.smartthings.com, at least at this time.

I’m currently figuring out how I can get temperature, accelerometer, and open state from the same sensor without having to register it multiple times, which doesn’t work. :slight_smile:

Got the aliases straightened out and everything works. Only wrinkle is I need to update the Alexa device list after the aliases are set up but this works great, very impressed!

I wish there was an automated way to update items back and Amazon; alas there isn’t. Fortunately, the app spits out this information instead of you having to figure out what needs to go in there.

Thanks for the kind words and keep an eye out Friday for the next version.

Was wondering if I could do this for the wife since she hates alexa, jarvis, failed HA.

could I set up another lambda skill with a different invocation word like “channing tatum” or “Ryan gosling”

if I did this would I still be able to use all of my macros I use with my invocation word jarvis? Same arn#

I try and do little things that make her giggle to keep my waf up.

Yes and no…

it is a little advanced, but it CAN be done. This is the same concept as a multi-room setup that I outlined here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa#Multi-Room_Controls_.28Advanced.29

Please note that you have to create a second app, which creates a second Oauth token, which would require a second Lambda, which would necessitate a second ARN. All of this aside, following the directions should work.

However, when doing this you will have a complicated time with Message queues and such.

From a personal standpoint, would you really want your wife screaming out another guy’s name? Kinda the same as you screaming Alexa (or Jarvis) all of the time :slight_smile:

Maybe you could compromise and use the Amazon setting to change it to Echo or computer and then change the invocation name to something gender neutral like “home”.

For some reason I am unable to run Routines. Is anyone having this problem. I keep getting “To run SmartThings routines, ask me to run the routine by its full name. For a list of available routines, simply say, ‘ask Home to list routines’.”

And I even tried testing it through the console, and same result.

Any thoughts?

Thought I would throw in my 2 cents… I understand what you are wanting to do…

You only need one install of askAlexa, or another app. Keep the lambda that you currently have.

Create another aws skill. Give that skill the sexy stud invocation name, also, use the same ARN as your other skill, from the same and only lambda.

Now, you have one app install, one lambda, and multiple skills. Both skills will talk to the one lambda and it will talk to the one askAlexa install. They can both run all of your macros, the only difference is the invocation name.

This is exactly how I do it with my app… Which I won’t say the name of here because that’s not right… But I’m willing to help out everyone.

@MichaelS, that is the earth way to set up room control for your users. No multi installs of the app. Your users can create macros based off of room names… At least I think that will work with your macros. I haven’t used the app in a very long time, so it might have changed. But the lambda and skill set up works.

:grin:

Edit, I just read your link above… I see why you’re saying multi installs of the app… Control of only one room… We built that into our app to prevent the multi installs. Sorry.

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With respect to both the apps we shall not speak of. I was able to do this with said unspoken app and I kinda thought it was the same thing. Thank you I think you got my use case perfect. She can ask Leonardo Dicaprio anything she wants if she’ll just use it,lol. Thank you that answered my question I’ll just do the same thing as I did with unsaid, which I really like and am impressed as well, also @bamarayne could you help me with doggy door in core. I have questions and I really like the set up

4 Likes

Do you have routines selected in your app…Instead of it being universal you have to select which routines you want to be able to control (some people use this as a mechanism to prevent kids from running certain routines). From there you must populate the developer slots from the Settings>>Setup Variables. It sounds like you may have done one of these but not the other.

Let me know if that helps.

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I may have misunderstood what @Cody_Farmer was looking for. If he wants to get rid of “Alexa”, that isn’t quite possibles as a name (or to be more correct, you can’t select your own but must use Amazon, Computer, Echo, etc). However, you are correct that another skill (with a different name) can still use the same Lamba which means the same ARN number can be used. For whatever reason I thought she also wanted to control her own devices and the two shall never meet…While Ask Alexa can do multi room (think isolated guest room) with multiple apps, I was making this more difficult than it needed to be. Thank you for the suggestion. I am going to add it to my wiki documentation as another use case as it doesn’t require additional coding!

As for the structure of the apps, yeah…design philosophy differences.

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I’ve bee trying to run a routine for hours and I finally changed all the names so they are all spelled out and with not added characters. for example, I had a “I’m back” routine and not I had to change it to “I am back”.

I find that I had the same issue with macro names…I had a macro called “I’m going to bed”, which worked for months, then one day it stopped working and I had to change it to “I am going to bed” for it to work again.

I guess no shortcuts for me.

I love this app BTW, and thank you for making Alexa useful again.

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Thank you! I appreciate the comments and support. Abbreviations, and how you speak, really affect the speech to text recognition, which in turn affects Ask Alexa. While I compensate for this in removing the punctuation, it still requires a bit of tuning of the name that you use to address your devices, macros, and routines.

Either way, I am glad you got this working and were able to share your results. You are not the only one (and won’t be) that encounters this issue. Scrolling up to about a year ago we talked about this as a limitation. Amazon has gotten better, but is not yet perfect.

I recommend if you are new user to waiting until 2.2.4 is announced before installing. This will be out tomorrow.

And we are up:

1 Like

Hi @MichaelS.

I’m stuck at Interaction Model. I don’t see the option at add more slot. Help

Is this a first time installation? If so, the process is a bit different than an upgrade. From a high level it is:

Install the Main App
Install the Extension
Install Lambda
Configure your environment (using the smart app)
Print/view the setup variables
Configure the development area (using the data from the above step).

Again, if it is a totally fresh install I recommend going here and going through the instructions. The first time is a pain, but there is nothing more cool than having Alexa tell you about your environment.

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa

If I am misunderstanding, please let me know…

@MichaelS

I followed the link every steps and got stuck at the interaction model. Wiki instruction and image show

I don’t have that option to add slot type.