jay (support) wrote:Sounds awesome! I think everyone would like a little more detail if you're willing to share. For instance, when you say:
Alexa, ask Plex to play the movie Groundhog Day
What are all the parts in play to make it happen? A play-by-play for each conversation would be very helpful for others who want to do similar things.
Ok
It is all really simple stuff, I am only scratching the surface of Indigo.
Plex released an Alexa plugin today. So that part is very straightforward, if you use Plex and have an Echo then search out the Plex skill, it is not in Smart Home skills but the regular skills.
Harmony has a skill for Alexa too, so that is easy and straightforward. That controls all the AV for the lounge, Onkyo, TV, Appletv Lounge and AppleTv Fireplace (which has my old 42" tv with an AppleTv app playing of a roaring fire that plays when the Lounge on timer to turn on and is turned off as part of the Alexa 'turn on goodnight' routine.
The lounge led cabinet lights, ornament lights are on Lightwaverf with some on the Evergreen ZWave sockets that are replacing Lightwaverf gradually.
The three up lights are Hue, as are the three globe lights at the back of the room, behind the tv is a Hue Bloom, and under the sectional sofa is a Hue lightstrip with extension ( makes the sofa to appear to be floating
)
Oh and the room scented is on a lightwaverf switch.
The lighting effects are controlled by Indigo through, Hue, RFXCOM (Lightwaverf), and ZWave interfaces/plugins.
The Plex events are tracked by Indigo using the Plex plugin.
With triggers to detect Plex Movie is being played, turn off zwave and lightwaverf lights, dim Hue lights to a scene I call TvRelax, but drop it right down to about 20%. Also trigger on Play music , different scene is set or Play TvShow yet another scene.
Another trigger detects if pause is pressed, which lifts the lights by 20%, so people can see to move around, normally for drinks or food.
The last Plex trigger is if the movie/Tvshow/ music stops then restore to previous settings and turn cabinet and ornament lights back on.
All really basic, simple stuff, just comes together really really nicely when you can come into a room and just talk to Alexa.
Now sometimes Alexa just gets honray (sp?) and does a some weird stuff.
I have over 25,000 episodes and a few thousand movies along with 80k songs. It is just great to simply say what you want to watch and up it comes without having scroll through endless lists or type letter by letter from an on screen keyboard.
Plex 'know' which episode we are up to, so saying 'Alexa, ask Plex to play the tvshow The West Wing' it plays the last episode we were watching or plays the next in line.
Having only just played with the Alexa Plex skill today, I can say it does have a leaning towards behaving like an over zealous toaster in Red Dwarf with its suggestions.
Alexa, play the album Crisis What Crisis by Supertramp, and Alexa replies would you like to listen Röyksopp?
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