Use Alexa as Extended Door Bell?

[pilotlight (Ian Powell)]

@Agrajag

Things that I feel would be great for a skill to be able to overcome:

1. The ability to not need a simulated contact.
2. The ability to set it up to match the above to allow it to play nearly any sound or speak any text.
3. The ability to set it to play on multiple Echo devices without having to create a duplicate routine for every device (why Amazon doesn’t allow multi-select of devices is a mystery).

If this skill can improve upon my current setup or streamline that setup then I’d be interested.

Sorry, I am very new to the SmartThings eco system so are not sure what a ‘simulated contact’ is.
In addition to the Alexa skill, I am creating is also an API that when called will get Alexa to announce to all Alexa’s in the home (without needing to duplicate) that there’s someone at the door. Additionally, Amazon give you the choice of various door bell chimes and additionally you can choose to run a routine.

I thought it may be useful.

[Agrajag (Rich Heimlich)]

A simulated contact sensor is something you can create, mainly via Webcore (scripting) that Smartthings and Alexa see as a real sensor in your system, but that you can control through code and then tie into a Routine. So, for example, I have one simulated contact sensor called “Dogs”. The code works like this:

IF doorbell sensor opens (someone rung the bell) or door motion sensor opens (someone knocked on the door) AND my alarm is set to Armed Away THEN open Dogs.

In Alexa the Routine then says IF Dogs changes to Open THEN turn up the volume of the Echo in the foyer to max and play a media file of dogs barking (which then bark for about 10 minutes which makes it nearly impossible for someone to hear the same dog bark sounds over and over in one session).

Another way we deal with this is to simply have a dry sensor on our old-style doorbell chime to sense the button push (which causes the chime to fire and the dry sensor is connected to a reed switch that closes and then that triggers Alexa to do whatever you want.

I only am filling you in on all of this to allow you to know what’s out there now and to hopefully make the skill go above and beyond that, or to just simplify all that.

Oh, also, I definitely would NOT want a skill that only has the option of playing the doorbell sound on ALL Devices as I never want this, for example, in my bedroom as my wife or I might be napping and not want to be disturbed. There’s also no reason, in my setup, to have the foyer echo device do this as it would just cause the actual doorbell sound AND the skill sound to fight against each other.

[Agrajag (Rich Heimlich)]

@rontalley

You can do alot with EchoSpeaks.

Thanks for this Ron. Sounds like a way to possibly streamline a lot of my effort. I have Alexa Routines doing a lot of the lifting, but with this approach a single webcore script could replace quite a few Routines.