[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

You have the option of internal (IP) or external.

Regarding testing, if you understand you correctly, you can test these in the Amazon Developer Simulator. There is no ‘button’ to test these, but the way I do it is I simply type the commands into the simulator and look at the results. Nothing comes from the Alexa, but the macros (or actions) still happen. Is that what you mean?

Thanks for that suggestion. What I was thinking is a play button on the macro within the app to run it. Perhaps at the screen that lists the marcros, a play button to run it

Hmmm…so basically a run on demand…I will add this to my list of items to look into! I think one of the reasons I didn’t do that is that most of the time you are looking for output…but a savvy user could look in Live Logging to ensure they are working…

Hahaha. I will do your live logging idea. I am clearly not one of your savy users. Lol

You knew about HTTP requests…savvy is a state of mind!

I’ve created a bit of a how-to based on what i’ve done. I’m not there with it all, and id say its not perfect just yet, but i think this is down to some of the trigger words (not sure on the terminology) that ive defined in the alexa skill.

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

Comments and suggestions very welcome.

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Quick question re Macro’s in Ask Alexa, is there a way of getting them to pass parameters onto a webCoRE piston. From what i have tested i see the param coming from Alexa, but doesn’t seem to be passed to webCoRE

What parameter are you looking for? Right now it is just ‘run’ that gets sent over to WebCore…I do include items like the message that Alexa is sending out, but what other parameters would be needed? I can certainly work with Adrian on making this data available.

What I was thinking was to have a single macro for all channels (bbc1, itv five etc) in Ask Alexa and in effect in the skill, but include LIST_OF_PARAMS and or LIST_OF_OPERATORS in the skill for the channel name, which would be passed to Ask Alexa (as I have tried), if this were then sent to the piston I could set the correct command to be sent to the IRremote. Means I only have to update the LIST_OF_PARAMS/LIST_OF_OPERATORS and the piston when changing channels, and I don’t have to create a macro for each channel.

In the example below
‘Alexa ask kitchen tv to set channel to bbc 1’

‘channel’ is the macro, ‘bbc 1’ is the param

So Param is passed to Piston and I check this as an arg in the piston and send the corresponding code.

Might be other ways to do this, just trying to reduce the work in macros etc.

Let me look at the code tonight and see what is possible now and what might need to be done to get this to work.

Hi, I tried the http request and tried a few options, none work. This is the error I got
error groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: script1497918419879423015653.convertToHex() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.String, java.lang.Integer) values: [192.168.86.6, 4030] @ line 2253

Now not sure if this matters. In my playing around with other device to get this to work, I found that PUT does not work, but GET does. Not sure exactly what that means but might help here :slight_smile:

Trying another command I got this response
error groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: script1497981845770423015653.convertToHex() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.String, java.lang.Integer) values: [192.168.86.197, 80] @ line 2253

I will look into this…this used to work…

Hmm…First, it appear you are not using the most updated version of the app…that won’t fix it, but you should always upgrade to the latest version.

Once you get updated, I would be interested in some outputs of this…Let’s take this to PM as this is more of an advanced issue and does not apply to most folks.

Have you looked at the ‘Alexa call home’ capability?

Yes. It works well. Anything specific you were wondering?

Are you talking about the SIP based device to device calling via the app. If so I have tried. But on the app they detect carrier and location based on SIM and disable the service. So I need to try and spoof which is on my to do list but haven’t done it yet. Any specific reason for the ask
And I tested the http and it works. Thanks so much. I haven’t got http to work when user and password authentication is required. Trying different formats of entering the user info in the app but haven’t nailed it yet. Any ideas?
Thanks

Did you have to do anything to get the icon to show in the middle of the app. I read that when you launch the app it just does it. I’m not sure I have the right version as I had to download the apk. Not available in Canada store.

Can you share a screenshot of which icon you are referring to?

I can’t. It only shows if you have the features. It’s the middle icon for messaging and calls.

Confirmed in our PM this is in the Alexa (Amazon) app…thanks!