[NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa

I stumbled on a weird workaround to my issue. I was having the problem I mentioned when I went Marketplace -> SmartApps -> My Apps -> Ask Alexa. But if instead of that, I tapped the top right menu and went Menu -> SmartApps -> Ask Alexa, it works fine and goes to the main Ask Alexa page instead of direct to a macro. I have no idea why it works one way and not the other. Regardless, this is a great app that finally makes Alexa and SmartThings do all the functions I’ve wanted it to do. Thanks for all the work and the responsiveness on the forum!

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Well, that’s because of this…

The ones listed in the marketplace are for the initial install.

Your work around is actually the way you are supposed to get to it, after, you install it.

Keep exploring! There’s lots of gems!

Got it. I just converted over to ST recently after being a Vera guy for four or five years. I’m still figuring out some things. Thanks!

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Lol… I’m contemplating jumping shop to vera plus

Profile Management sucks in Alexa. Only parent account can use Spotify, so I needed to create Ask Alexa under my wife’s profile. It is not the end of the world, just a little annoying.

I have a question about reporting, does the output of the reporting depend on the question asked to Alexa or does it needs to be a specific report setup.

For example I have a Presence Report that reads out the presence of all the status of presence sensors. Lets say I wanted to whittle that down to something like.

Alexa, Ask My Home the last time Connor present Presence Report

Do I need to build a specific report for that or will Ask Alexa base that report on the current Presence Report? I am trying to get my head round these reports.

@SamB
I’m pretty sure you’re going to have to build a macro specifically for that.

It would be nice if the program was that intuitive, but once you build the macro database it is great… Just takes time to set it up.

Okay thanks, I am trouble kinda bringing it all together. For example if I want to say Alexa, Tell My Home Dinner is ready and have a push message send to the phones connected to ST and flash the light.

I tried using CORE but when I set the core to run the piston when Ask Alexa Macro was executed nothing happened :frowning:


@SamB

In the Core smartapp change the piston from what you have to a simple piston that has a blank If section and only has the Then section configured… like this (your AskAlexa app is fine)…

@bamarayne initially I tried your suggestion and it didn’t work but then I looked at your screenshot closely and it seems I had the action in the wrong section, it needed to go into the Else… section rather than Then… which is where I had it.

I did the same thing the first time… This way works really well for me… I hope it does you too.

I’ve noticed that many home automation guys will experiment with multiple platforms. I’ve done Vera, Staples Connect (that was a bad investment - good hub and app, but Staples abandoned it), and now ST. I really liked my Veralite running UI5 and still have it as a secondary controller on my system because of its tremendous flexibility, but seriously disliked my Vera Edge running UI7. I had trouble adding devices, and UI7 wasn’t as flexible or as easy to use as UI5. It felt like a functional step backward but with a prettier user interface. My neighbor says he thinks it’s gotten better, though.

Probably it has been asked before, but is there bidirectional communication between CoRE and Ask Alexa?

I know AA can trigger Pistons, but can CoRE trigger AA to do things? Namely, I’m thinking of having this happen to enable AA to speak notifications.

CoRE can NOT trigger something in AA…not because of anything technical on the ST side, but you simply can’t ‘wake’ Alexa without a voice command. This is by design at Amazon, but it would be nice if it DID work…SO many possibilities with that.

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I installed everything exactly as the wiki said. I was able to see and configure the Ask Alexa app in my smartthings app on my phone. It see’s my sensors. However, I can’t seem to get anything to work when i ask alexa. I asked status she doesn’t have an answer. I set up a voice macro to arm my smartthings to Away mode, and configured all my devices and the ability to change modes but she’s doesn’t recognize when I ask her to run the voice macro. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

What exactly are you sweety to her? What is your skill invocation name? Sneaking? Home?

I assume you set up the slots correctly?

What are slots? I didn’t see much about that in your wiki except the custom slots at the top of the page but that seemed to me for more advanced users.

Jonathan Renner

Nope…this is definitely a requirement:

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

You need to build each of the custom slot as described in the documentation, under the ‘Developer Account’ section. You need to have all of these manually created

CANCEL_CMDS
DEVICE_TYPE_LIST
LIST_OF_DEVICES
LIST_OF_MACROS
LIST_OF_OPERATORS
LIST_OF_PARAMS
LIST_OF_SHPARAM
LIST_OF_SHCMD