Adding Indigo To Alexa Routine Trigger Virtual Device

[mgolden50]

I know that adding an equivalent function to the IFTTT Trigger solution for Indigo to trigger Alexa routines is already in the feature request list. But here are some additional thoughts on how it might be implemented…
-An additional Model could be added to the drop-down when creating a new virtual device that might be called
“Alexa Routine Trigger”
-This new type of virtual device, when published to Alexa, would send a “button press” trigger to Alexa when
turned on from any from any Indigo Trigger, Schedule, or Action. The state would automatically be reset to
“off” so as to be waiting for the next “on” command.
-Not sure if the user assigned Indigo name for the Trigger Device could be used as the name of the trigger
device that would show up in the Alexa device list. But it would be great if that would work.
-When an Indigo Trigger Device is published to Alexa it would be great if default type could be something like
“button”.

[jay (support)]

This can already be done - just create a virtual on/off device. The "on" action group would have two actions: 1) turn the state of the device to "on" 2) after delaying a few seconds, turn the state back to "off". Then publish the device as a switch in Alexa and execute your routine whenever the switch turns on.

Not sure if there is an Alexa "button" device type available in their API, but I'll add it to the list.

[mgolden50]

Hi Jay,

I use the virtual device solution now. But it would be much more convenient to see a feature added to the Alexa Plugin which would work more like the old Alexa Hue Bridge plugin-- by which I could not just control devices, but also directly select an "on" and "off" action group for Alexa. to trigger. This would allow Alexa to control physical devices separately from controlling actions. Probably 75% of the things I publish to Alexa are actions and not physical devices. Not having to create a virtual device each time I want to control an action would simply things including naming conventions. Such a feature would also benefit enormously from having a conditional execution panel for actions as mentioned earlier.

Thanks,

Mike