Amazon Echo / Alexa app

[Daniel]

@Daniel: As you are part of EMBS, can you please clarify to me some things based on your previous reply:

1. Is it possible to ask Alexa for a light status i.e. "Alexa is Kitchen Spotlight On?" or "Alexa, what is the status of Kitchen Spotlight?". As far as I have seen on other skill implementations, it is possible for Alexa to respond to such questions by reading the status group address given inside the Alexa App configuration.
   
2. I understand that the actual description you want to call for a light, should be placed in the "Friendly Name" field of Alexa App configuration. There is also a "Friendly Description" field does this also used by Alexa or it is just cosmetic or should I put there also the room name that the light belongs to? I have noticed that if I name one light like "kitchen spots" and another one "kitchen led" for example, and then I try to ask "Alexa, turn on kitchen led", she only gets the "kitchen" part ignoring the "led" so i get the "a few devices share this common name, Which one do you prefer?" answer (this has nothing to do with my accent). Have you configure your lights such way too and get them understood correctly by her?
   
3. Besides an "AC on/off" switch, I have also created two other temperature objects in LM, one is used as my "AC setpoint" and the other for my "AC setpoint status". Then I created a thermostat device in Alexa App, and selected the "AC setpoint" group address in the Temperature object field and the "AC setpoint status" group address in the Temperature status object field. I can turn my AC on/off ok, but I am geting a "hmm, AC is not responding" answer when I ask her "Alexa, set AC to 25 degrees". Any ideas?
   

Thank you in advance!

Hi
1. Alexa has only one way communication at the moment. You can only ask her to do something.
2. I have in my office two set of lights and I called them 'Office one' and 'Office two' In 90% she do recognize me correctly. In rare cases she do ask which one do I want? This is nothing to do with our implementation. You can check in alexa app what words did she pick up. You can help her this way to understand you better as you can tell her if it was correct or not.
Description is only for you. Alexa is ignoring it.
3. This is known bug :

Amazon recently announced range of new possibilities Read here
We are in process of complete rewrite of current app as they changed whole approach to the devices.  We are nearly finished and will publish soon.  This is why we didn't fix this bug as new app is on its way.

BR
Daniel

[jetsetter]

Hi
1. Alexa has only one way communication at the moment. You can only ask her to do something.
2. I have in my office two set of lights and I called them 'Office one' and 'Office two' In 90% she do recognize me correctly. In rare cases she do ask which one do I want? This is nothing to do with our implementation. You can check in alexa app what words did she pick up. You can help her this way to understand you better as you can tell her if it was correct or not.
Description is only for you. Alexa is ignoring it.
3. This is known bug :

Amazon recently announced range of new possibilities Read here
We are in process of complete rewrite of current app as they changed whole approach to the devices.  We are nearly finished and will publish soon.  This is why we didn't fix this bug as new app is on its way.

BR
Daniel

Thank you for the feedback and the amazing news about the upcoming app update Daniel!
Per above point:

1. From what I understood from the new possibilities link you send me, their new API now supports "Proactive State Updates" which means that AT LAST we will be able to ask for a light status! Please tell me that this will be included in the upcoming app update that you will publish soon??
   
2. I see from other Alexa enabled devices like Philips Hue, that they don't have such kind of long device name issues... Is there any chance that maybe you are using a slight different api implementation that could potentially causing this issue?
   
3. No problem! Looking forward the new app version!
   

Regarding new features, I was desperately looking for a way to make Alexa announce something without been asked first (like, "Doorbell is ringing" or "Someone is at the door"), I saw that many people was asking for the same thing, so eventually, Amazon announced a new "push notifications" Alexa capability! Will this feature included in your new app?? I also saw here that there is also a workaround for direct announcements without have to ask Alexa what are your notifications!!

Thank you again.

BR

[Daniel]

Hi
1. As first step we are going to rebuild all the current functionality in to new app to keep backward compatibility. In next steps we will be adding all the new features so yes it will come. We will implement all the features what amazon is allowing us only we will do it in steps.
2. This is true, Amazon did partner with few big manufactures and they implement those devices via different API. This API is not even using cloud, control of those devices is done locally. Unfortunately this is possible only for such big players like Philips. For the rest of manufactures there is different API via cloud to cloud and there is only one and we cant use any other. I will keep in mind this point while testing new app. Let see maybe new API will work better.

For now we are planning to make only what Amazon is allowing us to do so via provided API. I think that sooner or later Amazon will extend its API for such functionality.

BR

[jetsetter]

Thank you Daniel, now is everything clear to me.
Looking forward the new version...
BR

[jetsetter]

Thank you Daniel, now is everything clear to me.
Looking forward the new version...
BR

Hi Daniel, 

The "What's New" section of the latest Amazon Alexa iOS app states that "The updated Alexa App Smart Home section lets users rename, view the state of, and control smart lights, locks and thermostats..."

So it seems that status updates are finally supported also by their cloud API! 
Any news/updates regarding the new version of Logicmachine's Alexa Skill that you working on?

Thank you in advance!

[Daniel]

Thank you Daniel, now is everything clear to me.
Looking forward the new version...
BR

Hi Daniel, 

The "What's New" section of the latest Amazon Alexa iOS app states that "The updated Alexa App Smart Home section lets users rename, view the state of, and control smart lights, locks and thermostats..."

So it seems that status updates are finally supported also by their cloud API! 
Any news/updates regarding the new version of Logicmachine's Alexa Skill that you working on?

Thank you in advance!

Hi
Thanks for info. We have slight delay as we were finishing some other stuff.
Alexa evolution is on our short list of task to do.
Stay tuned
BR

[sx3]

In my project I have used scenes 1-64 sharing 1 group adress.
Is it possible to call up theese scenes with using a BOOL groupadress for each scene and using logics to call up the right number?

[Erwin van der Zwart]

Hi,

Yes, create 64 objects in a range x/x/1 to x/x/64 and give them all the tag "Scene_Bool"

Then create a event based script attached to the tag 'Scene_Bool' and put this script in there:

Code:

grp.write('1/1/1', string.split(event.dst, '/')[3])

It will write the object address as value (1-64) to '1/1/1'

BR,

Erwin

[sx3]

Thanks Erwin!
I actually wrote WITH, instead of WITHOUT. Though maybe it would be possible to refine the Alexa app and make it possible to enter the GA for scenes and and add an value to it directly under skills.
Would be a easier solution rather than create extra set of 64 BOOL adresses.

[Erwin van der Zwart]

Hi,

You have to ask Daniel as he sets the specs for the Alexa App, but i agree it should work like that. I’m 100% sure Daniel will implement this when Alexa supports it.

BR,

Erwin

[Daniel]

Thanks Erwin!
I actually wrote WITH, instead of WITHOUT. Though maybe it would be possible to refine the Alexa app and make it possible to enter the GA for scenes and and add an value to it directly under skills.
Would be a easier solution rather than create extra set of 64 BOOL adresses.

Hi
How would you like to call the scene? Here I mean Alexa.
There are new functionality in Alexa for scenes but they did in a way to create scenes in alexa itself not to call other device which will send those. Maybe we could combine those somehow.
BR

[sx3]

Hi Daniel,

In my opinion I think there should be a sharp line between KNX and Alexa.
I would still like to be able to save and recall my scenes in the dimmers from normal push buttons or visualisation aswell and not be depending on the Echo device. And in the same time, all scene recalls should be synced, no matter if they are recalled from Alexa or push buttons.

"Alexa, set livingroom to scene one"

Even if it wouldn't feel 100% right, I guess it would be okey to say
"Alexa, turn on livingroom scene one"

But the main thing would be the ability to bind a 1-byte KNX GA and set a default value of 0-63 for each device/skill without creating a a load of BOOL GA and run a script.
Thought it would be nice to keep it simple.

[Erwin van der Zwart]

Hi,

I agree that we should try to keep things as simple as possible, but i also notice a over-reaction in this..

What is the problem to add/use several objects for these tasks? Home and building automation is getting more advanced, so yes sometimes we should use a few of the 65.000 internal objects to realize a task, thats why we have them in the first place..

BR,

Erwin

[managementboy]

Superb job! loving the echo dot I got just for this.

Waiting to be able to set the temperature soon 

[jetsetter]

@Daniel,

Any news or updates on the Alexa app? I am sure we can get a lot more out of it now that Amazon released their new dev api...

[jetsetter]

Hi,

I am coming back to this, as my echo dot <-> LM4 integration has start to behave strangely the last days, probably due to some updates received by the echo dot in order to support the new Amazon Alexa API implementation and features. I can still turn on/off my lights, but suddenly my AC (is registered as a "thermostat" in LM alexa app) can only be turned on but not turned off any more (Alexa responds something like "your device doesn't support this function yet" or similar), this was working fine some days/ weeks ago without me doing any other changes at all.
Of course the well known bug of not being able to change the temperature set point is still there. 

So, is there any new Alexa LogicMachine Skill version coming out soon?

Thank you in advance.

[Daniel]

Hi,

I am coming back to this, as my echo dot <-> LM4 integration has start to behave strangely the last days, probably due to some updates received by the echo dot in order to support the new Amazon Alexa API implementation and features. I can still turn on/off my lights, but suddenly my AC (is registered as a "thermostat" in LM alexa app) can only be turned on but not turned off any more (Alexa responds something like "your device doesn't support this function yet" or similar), this was working fine some days/ weeks ago without me doing any other changes at all.
Of course the well known bug of not being able to change the temperature set point is still there. 

So, is there any new Alexa LogicMachine Skill version coming out soon?

Thank you in advance.

Hi
Sorry but no change since last update. We are busy in other areas.  We will try to find some time for it as there is not much left but I can't gave you any timeline.
For sure this was created by amazon as there was no change on our side.
BR

[jetsetter]

Dear Daniel 
I am sorry to hear that you no longer have the Alexa app among your team’s priorities.
I would propose you to reconsider though, as voice control is the future in the home automation world as far as I can tell, so it would be a shame not to let LM keep up with this evolution.
Let’s hope that you will find some time soon to give this app at least another big update so the new amazon API will be leveraged.
Thank you

[Daniel]

Hi
I managed to convince our management to shift priorities and one developer just started to work on it
BR

[jetsetter]

Now this is great news!
LM was and should stay ahead in this evolution and your decision reflects that.
I am looking forward for the next skill/app update to test!