[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

Good luck with everything !

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As always your quality of life and that of your family always comes first. Enjoy you vacation, and try to relax.

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My vacation is at the end of the month, but thank you! I did play around with programming this weekend and made some neat progressā€¦more to comeā€¦

Is theā€™completeā€™ install via Community Installer still on track, or should I bite the bullet and do the partial/manual one?

The community installer will never do the FULL installationā€¦that is not itā€™s scopeā€¦only the IDE part. I recommend doing the manual installation for now. You shouldnā€™t have any issues as it is up-to-date: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa

Ahh. I meant v 2.4.0 with the integrated Lambda installer feature, perhaps I had wrongly assumed this was achieved via Community Installer.

Noā€¦that version is not out yetā€¦still 2.3.9 which is still via the Community installer for the IDE piece, but the Lambda and Developer pieces still need to be installed manually.

I just got an email from Amazon announcing the end of life of node.js v4
What do I need to do to make sure this continues to work? Just change node.js version to v8?

Yepā€¦it should always be the latest version. Mine has been running great on it:

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Happy Fridayā€¦

As mentioned last week I am rather busy this summer but I still enjoy writing up something every Friday.

This week just a few notes: First, I usually put out bug fixes without notice. So, if you see the color of the apps in the IDE this is on purpose and usually indicates a small bug fix was released. For example, just this morning, I updated the Rooms/Groups extension to 1.0.4b. This was a small change to a reference for the humidity sensor you might have chosen for the room status. Again, this is not a requirement to load but if you do upgrade it might fix a bug for you.

Speaking about the rooms extension, I do have a question for those users that use it extensivelyā€¦do you use the thermostat feature to control the temperature? Unlike lights, people usually have only one or two thermostats in their entire house and they MAY be better served controlling it directly instead of in a room context. I ask as I am actually making revisions to code to allow for more context based control if the room ( i.e. ā€œturn on the lightsā€ and ā€œturn on the fansā€ could be done instead of just turning on all of the switches in a room). Anyway, getting rid of the thermostat control in a room could allow more and easier contextual status of the room.

Anyway, if there is anyone using the extension to control the temperature I would love to hear your use caseā€¦. otherwise I way deprecate that feature in lieu of better status control.

Have a great weekendā€¦and make sure you recognize the ladies around you for Motherā€™s day. Maybe a special automation where they have someone else do the laundry :slight_smile:

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Hi MichaelS,

First of all many thanks for this great Ask Alexa project. Iā€™m trying to set this up and everything is going well till I reache the point that I have to click on the JSON Editor. After this something has to be done. What exactly? When I go back to the smartapp (on my phone?) and click on Setup Ask Alexa => Setup Variables Link, I receive the same logging info in my Browser (on my PC) as when I had to do this for the Lambda part.

Your instruction is: Just like the Lambda code setup (see Ask_Alexa#One-Step_Method) you will click the link for the Developer Code (Second bold line).

I canā€™t figure out this sentence or maybe Iā€™m missing some options in my smartapp?
Where do I find the Developer Code in the SmartApp on my phone or somewhere else?

I will appreciate if someone can help me out on this!!!

Thanks in advance,

Edward

Edwardā€¦sorry this was not clearā€¦basically, with two browser windows open (one with the Amazon JSON editor, and one with your setup variables page), you will click one of the two buttons below Developer Code. This will either be ā€œDisplay Developer JSON codeā€ or "Download Developer Code.

If you click the ā€œDisplay Developer JSON codeā€, you will copy and paste the resulting code on the page to the JSON editor. If you download the code, you will click the area to upload the code to the JSON area:

Does that help at all?

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Hi MichaelS many many thanks for this fast reply. Iā€™m at work right now. As soon as I get home I will give it a try and I will let you know if I have manage to pass this hurdle :blush:

Thanks again and have a nice rest of the day,

Edward

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Hi MichaelS,

First question is the wiki site down of confronting problems?
And sorry, I love all this Home Automation project, but Iā€™m not an experienced user. I still canā€™t figure out how to get to the point I can click on Display Developer JSON code. Is this just a sentence under the live logging? or do I have to be in ā€˜browser windows twoā€™ on a Amazon website? (if so witch one? https://alexa.amazon.com/ or https://console.aws.amazon.com/lambda) and do I have to use the smartApp on my phone at this point?

Sorry again to bother you with all this question and thanks a lot.

Edward

Hmmmā€¦I it does look like the wiki is indeed downā€¦I will contact the site admin.

To Display Developer JSON code You will have your live logging open on your IDE, then open the app and go to Settings>>Setup Ask Alexa and the Setup Variables will be there. Going to that page, the Live Logging will display the URL to get to the page I references. You can then follow the directions, going to the JSON editor under developers.amazon.com and editing the skill.

Not a bother at all, and it sounds like you are closeā€¦so keep at it.

Wonderful and thanks again, I will give it a try.

Best regards,

Edward

I did give the guy who runs the wiki a heads up that there is an issue. Hopefully he can get it working again.

Looks like the Wiki is back up!

Hi Michael, yes thanks I have been trying to solve this and Iā€™m glad to inform that Iā€™m almost to the end. The current problem Iā€™m dealing with right now is the ARN information. Iā€™m receiving a error message when pasting the ARN. I click on copy to Clipboard and then past. Do I have to edit something by deleting a part of this info? The format is amzn1.ask.skill.axxxxxxx-xxxe-xxxx-bxbx-xxebxxxacxax. In this case I have replaced every number with a ā€˜Xā€™. which part do I have to past? The bold part or everything?

Thanks again, Iā€™m almost there :grinning:

Edward

Error message: ā€˜The provided Lambda ARN is not in the correct formatā€™