I will answer the second question first…technically, Ask Alexa is linked to your SmartThings account, not a user. Are you saying she is just another user in your main account? Technically, you shouldn’t need another Lambda or Developer account if you have a single ST account and all of the Alexa devices are in one account as well…Let me know specifically what you have set up, but it sounds like she should be able to control the same devices as you have set up in your main account.
For the garage, what is the error you are getting? Can you PM me with the output from your live logging? This will help considerably to see this info.
Thanks for the speedy reply. I did some further poking around with the garage door. As it turns out, ASK Alexa responds to ‘Alexa, ask SmartThings about home garage door,’ but not to ‘Alexa, ask SmartThings the home garage door status.’
The response when I ask with status is ‘I couldn’t find home garage door.’ It almost seems as if with the word status, Alexa may be falling back on the native ST integration rather than using ASK Alexa, or something similar to that.
As far as the ST account setup, yes, we have one ST account and my wife and I are different users. I thought it would work similarly to the way you describe, but when our Echo device is switched to her profile, Alexa no longer responds to Alexa. ask SmartThings… commands. I switch profiles back to me and it works again.
I noticed that the ASK Alexa app does not show up in her Alexa companion app on her phone, so that’s what made me think I might need to go through Lambda and Dev in her Amazon account.
The Echo device is registered in my Amazon account with her as part of the household.
I think I know why…“home” is a key word in a couple areas in both Alexa and Ask Alexa…If this is your only garage door, I am betting removing the ‘home’ from it WILL work. If you have a reason to keep it that name, I recommend setting up an alias and using that to voice control the door. Remember to update your slots after you do any of these, but I am betting that will work.
I don’t use a dual user setup, so I am not 100% clear how this might work…you say this:[quote=“ADHawk, post:3434, topic:46786”]
but when our Echo device is switched to her profile, Alexa no longer responds to Alexa. ask SmartThings…
[/quote]
Are you saying you have two separate device accounts? If that is the case you WILL need to set up separate developer accounts (as the skill only works in the same account as the device). However, you can create a separate code (ARN) in Lambda so you don’t need to create a separate AWS account…Does that all make sense?
Hi,
My query is probably unrelated, but I’m having issues playing music on my Samsung Multi room speaker using the AskAlexa skill. I always receive the attached error message despite upgrading the SmartApp.
Did it work before and now it doesn’t? Is this a new install? It appears you are attempting to run this from the simulator…can you share what command you are actually giving it? In addition, did you update the slots after you added the spekers to Ask Alexa?
Finally, simulator or voice, I will need to see what your live logging says. If everything else is working and it is simply this I am pretty sure we can get past it.
These commands worked previously (‘previous track’, ‘next track’), however, after the new install only the ‘pause’ command works, but the ‘play’ command doesn’t. I ran this initially from echo and echo dot and received the same response, afterwards I ran it from the simulator to obtain some textual feedback.
Yes I updated the slots after I added the speakers to Ask Alexa. Please find all the screen shots below:
I was able to find the issue…it came down, literally, to a space between two characters that was put in because of some changes encountered on how Amazon sends data to my app. I have pushed 2.2.9b to the IDEs…If you upgrade it should take care of the issue. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Also, looking at the screenshots you sent, I am curious if you are encountering any other issues. It appears you are pulling the information on the slots either directly from the Cheat Sheet (which is the wrong location for this information) or you are entering it yourself, which is fine but you REALLY should be entering it from the Settings>>Setup Variables page. For example, in you List of reports you have: Home report (Aliases: Stanley, Honey). Is this a case that you never run this and it is aliased out to another name that works ok?
I want to make sure as I also see in your list of operators run{routine name] which comes from the cheat sheet…NOT the proper Setup Variables page.
Thanks for the info. I was able to rename the garage door (and the thermostat) since they both had ‘home’ in the name, and that seems to work OK.
I setup my wife with an Amazon Dev account, and input the same Ask Alexa skill info there as in my account and all seems to be working.
I used the same Lambda function (ARN) as in my Amazon dev account and all seems to be running along fine. Can you think of any reason I would NEED a different function to use in her account? I haven’t seen any conflicts yet.
One issue I’m working though right now is with voice reporting. I created a voice report called ‘battery’ to report on all my battery operated devices. But, when I say, “Alexa, battery report from SmartThings” all I get as a reply is “You only have one voice report called battery.”
So far I’m not experiencing any issues at the moment. I didn’t obtain the custom slots from the set variables page, I entered it myself. However, like you rightly pointed out. I’ll do that now.
I’ll also upgrade the IDEs to 2.2.9b.
No…the Lamba account is agnostic to anything in your SmartThings account except the OAuth, which is shared between you and your wife… There should not be any issues with that.
Again, without any screenshots I will revert to my standard question…did you put the “battery” report name into your developer slots? Does the syntax “Alexa Ask SmarthThings about Battery” work?
I finally got back into AskAlexa and updated all the code. It is working and I have a macro that is triggering a routine and an acknowledgment message, but when I try a Device Control macro to trigger either a VS or an actual toggle switch, it does not google the switch. Am I missing something?
Glad you got it working…To be clear on a couple things…
When you say ‘device control macro’ do you actually mean a device group? As in you are attempting to control a bunch of switches within a group? If so, what command are you using? I was just testing this and I said “toggle {device group name}” and it did toggle. Did you try it in the simulator or by voice? I would be interested in what error, if any, you are getting.
Also, I assume you mean toggle, and not ‘google the switch’
Michael, thanks for reaching out. Yes, I was referring to Device group. I am trying to control 1 virtual switch. When it didn’t work, I tried to change it to a GE switch and it still did not work.
Excellent…I am still confused why toggle wouldn’t work with the switch group…If you have a change to troubleshoot I would be interested if you get any errors or even any verbal response to what is happening…Could be as simple as ‘toggle’ not being in your custom slots.
I will check my custom slots to see. I used the updated code for all the slots (started with an I i think) and then copied everything from my URL. No error as the dot said the acknowledgement statement only. Now I did not check the developer site for this one. But in the app, in device group, the screen did not change to show the toggle on/off options like it did for the command Macro. I will see if I can find time to play around. I am not the highest tech, but you helped me with my original install, So I want to help.
I haven’t updated Ask Alexa since I installed it several months ago. I looked at the wiki, but didn’t see update instructions. Is there anything like that?
Not sure what you mean. Since it was so long ago you pretty much have to update every piece of code…outside of setting up the Amazon sites(which you already have) the instructions are the same…here is a high level summary of the steps:
Update your Lambda code after copying you token and AppID fro the old code.
Update you IDE code installing any new extensions that hav come out since you last installed.
Run the setup variables piece.
In the developer slots upgrade your intent file, the slots (including adding the List of WCP) then update the utterances.
That should do it. Post here if you gave issues and I can assist.
