Can Alexa control a thermostat?

Hello all,
I have a Trane XL624 thermostat on its way to me and this will be my first experience with a thermostat in Indigo. I would like to be able to control it with the Echo.
1. Am I correct in assuming the only way to do that is with a virtual device and an action group that raises the temperature in increments or to a setpoint?
2. Since it reports current room temperature, is there a way to pass that value so it can be spoken over my speakers when I query Alexa?

Any other tips for a newbie with this device?

TIA,
Jim

[jay (support)]

The Alexa-Hue Bridge plugin emulates a Philips Hue bridge, which only supports lights - so anything you do is going to be somewhat of a hack.

I believe there is a plugin around here that creates wrapper devices that may work for you, but honestly I haven't tried it yet so others who have will have to jump in here and share their experiences. Other than that, however, I'm not sure you're going to be very successful getting useable, reliable thermostat control using the bridge plugin.

There are a number of Skills that you can get for Alexa that let you control a thermostat - none of which can be done through Indigo just yet. I have the Nest skill and I control mine via Alexa quite nicely.

[jay (support)]

Correct - the limitation is with the Alexa-Hue Bridge plugin (and Hue Hub). The only real way to solve it is with an Indigo native Skill. Something we'll definitely be looking at this year sometime.

Something we'll definitely be looking at this year sometime.

Then you can take over my code, I've already begun

[jay (support)]

Authentication is going to be your big problem (at least it was as of the last time I checked). There are definitely some other things that are problematic as well (no dynamically loaded utterances, again AFAIK so you have to build very large sample utterances and even then it's static). Definitely all things that are addressable, but it's going to be a lot more complex than I thought at first blush. We've been thinking on the authentication issue, and getting everyone an Indigo Account is the first step, but we've still got some work to do on our side to get it to the point that it's usable by the ASK.

Matt Reynolds has an ASK for Indigo up on Github though you have to edit it directly before deploying to enter authentication credentials and generate your own sample utterances.

Anyway, good luck with it.

C4W and Jay,
Thanks for all the info. I'm happy you're both headed in that direction, but it sounds like it may be a while before this is possible. Maybe I should return this Trane and bite the bullet with one of the more expensive echo-compatible thermostats.

So now I know the Nest works and there's an Indigo plugin....anyone know of any other brands that have Alexa integration out of the box AND an Indigo plugin?

Authentication is going to be your big problem (at least it was as of the last time I checked).

My first step into this has been that I've been writing a more robust API for both HBB and this (and other future things). Everything is still in it's infancy at this point.

I was looking through some skills today and saw one for venstar, one for netatmo, one for iris, one for Honeywell,and one for ecobee.

C4W and Jay,
Thanks for all the info. I'm happy you're both headed in that direction, but it sounds like it may be a while before this is possible. Maybe I should return this Trane and bite the bullet with one of the more expensive echo-compatible thermostats.

So now I know the Nest works and there's an Indigo plugin....anyone know of any other brands that have Alexa integration out of the box AND an Indigo plugin?

I was looking through some skills today and saw one for venstar, one for netatmo, one for iris, one for Honeywell,and one for ecobee.

Thanks midd. I saw those but none of the branded thermostats with skills are listed on Indigo's supported z-wave hardware list. Correction...it appears the Ecobee has an Indigo plugin, so I guess it's either that or a Nest at the moment. Unfortunately, I can't justify their price for my simple needs.

The Honeywell plugin is excellent (I use it both with an evhome controller and a single zone connected thermostat) but these are European devices. Nick's plugin uses the official Honeywell API's and his work is of a quality you can rely on as well as native Indigo IMHO. I of course I only have experience of the "Heat" use case here in England, but I know it originally was built for the US market devices. It doesn't need to show on the Z wave list but the plugin manages the devices itself. I also have the Honeywell skill enabled on my Echo but haven't really found myself using it as the temperature profiles/schedules and zoning in the Evohome itself combined with global actions for home and away etc work well enough, and I can surface the states, actual and target temperatures on a control page via the plugin.

In reality you can achieve most things with virtual device approach you describe, and I found the voice control at the zone level a novelty rather than useful (but then I do have 11 of them) and I was thinking of disabling it as it reduces the recognition accuracy as you end up with the zone names as defined in the Honeywell portal and I had to add different names to avoid recognition conflict.

Also I have not had the Honeywell skill be able to report zone setpoint or actual temperature.

[jay (support)]

The Honeywell plugin works nicely for me - I have the Honeywell Smart Thermostat. The only downside is that the plugin doesn't recognize when the thermostat is in "Auto" mode (and can't set it), so the behavior is a bit wonky when it sets a setpoint (it puts the thermostat into temporary mode, so it will eventually fall back to the preprogrammed mode). But my thermostat script runs 4 times a day so it's not been a big problem (it reverts to program mode after 24 hours in temporary mode).

I haven't yet tried the Alexa skill for it, but at least it exists.

Am I the only one that is thinking that Matt and Jay's implementation of home automation is probably the coolest in the world? It's not like they can't just whip up some quick code to do the most amazing things like shut the neighbors dog up from 3 miles away.

One way would be to create a virtual dimmer device (which the Indigo Hue plug-in could control) then have a trigger on dimmer percentage changes which runs some code to copy the dimmer percentage to the thermostat setpoint, ideally with some limit checking.

Definitely a hack, but I've done something similar to set an Indigo timer to any number of minutes I specify, by saying something like 'Alexa, set heater timer to 30'. Obviously you can only use 0 to 100 (dimmer values are percentages) but that would be enough for a temperature setting.

[jay (support)]

Am I the only one that is thinking that Matt and Jay's implementation of home automation is probably the coolest in the world? It's not like they can't just whip up some quick code to do the most amazing things like shut the neighbors dog up from 3 miles away.

Thanks! I'd like to think that our code would allow YOU to build some quick code to shut the neighbor's dog up from 3 miles away.

BTW, let me know when you have that plugin built, I'd definitely be interested...