Reverse (?) Alexa Integration Post a reply

This question is a means of identifying and preventing automated submissions.



:D :) :( :o :shock: :? 8) :lol: :x :P :oops: :cry: :evil: :twisted: :roll: :wink: :!: :?: :idea: :arrow: :| :mrgreen:
BBCode is ON, [img] is ON, [flash] is OFF, [url] is ON, Smilies are ON

Post options


   

Expand view Topic review: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by mundmc » Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:12 pm

Everything about that video is a win. Strong work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by BeeEss » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:01 pm

LOL, whoops - forgot about my notebook. It’s a Simpsons reference - bit of a deep cut.

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by jay (support) » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:58 am

Fantastic!

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by Colly » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:16 am

Colorado4Wheeler wrote:
Awesome! Does that book have an ass#toggle ability? :lol:

I was expecting someone to reference the book[emoji2]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by Colorado4Wheeler » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:07 am

Awesome! Does that book have an ass#toggle ability? :lol:

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by matt (support) » Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:35 am

This is awesome (and hilarious)!

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by jalves » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:43 am

I love this hack! (Would we have called it a kluge in the "old days"?) I'm going to have to try out something similar.

Just a thought but the same thing ought to work with Siri. Shouldn't it?

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by BeeEss » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:22 pm

Here's a crude phone video. For the video I turned the headphone on top of the Dot to 100% volume, but it usually sits at 35-40%.

https://youtu.be/qa6m5s5mERY

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by ckeyes888 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:22 pm

Too funny. I thought I was the only one weird enough to set that up.
So true though...it seems virtually bulletproof.
I’ve been using it to set Pandora stations.

Carl

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by jay (support) » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:56 pm

Awesome. Please make a video of it in action and post on YouTube (or somewhere) - I'd love to see it in action!

Re: Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by mundmc » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:38 pm

This rules. I’ve been there.

Nothing beats weirding out my mother-in-law like having my British-voiced bluetooth speaker giving commands to Alexa.

Reverse (?) Alexa Integration

Post by BeeEss » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:28 pm

If it's dumb and it works, it isn't dumb.

For quite some time, I had been using the Mac app Radium to tune SiriusXM stations - it has a bunch of Applescript hooks, so it was easy enough to use Indigo to automate the start of a stream. But I guess SiriusXM deprecated a prior version of their online player (which I assume Radium was using), so I was looking for another solution.

Found out that an Amazon Echo can tune a SiriusXM station with a voice command - "Alexa, play SiriusXM Lithium," or "Alexa, play SiriusXM channel 8." Then I remembered that Indigo can speak commands, so I figured what the heck:

Image

That's an Echo Dot with one half of a Skullcandy Cassette headphone sitting on top of it. So this Control Page allows us to select a station:

Image

When you tap a station link, it sets a variable (stationLink) to a text value of the channel number ("fifty three"), then calls Action Group 'Tune SiriusXM Station,' which among other things like setting the correct Airfoil speakers, does this:

Code: Select all
indigo.server.speak("Alexa, play serious XM channel" + stationLink)

It works beautifully. I am sort of shocked at how dead-on consistent it has been. Alexa even announces the channel name before she starts playing it.

This was important, because my morning alarm involves displaying HIPster (my Home Information Portal) on various TVs across the house, and playing some SiriusXM station for sound. HIPster is Magic Mirror running on a Raspberry Pi connected to my A/V receiver. The Pi also runs Airfoil Speakers (or Satellite, or whatever they call it.) So in the morning, Colorado4Wheeler's rad Alarm Clock plugin does its magic - turns on my bedroom TV (and others), sends Alexa the command to start a station that I've selected (via a Control Page) and fades in lights in appropriate parts of the house. The only thing I miss is that HIPster used to display the track/artist and station name in the bottom left - since that's coming from the Dot now I don't have that info, but that's okay:

Image

Now I just need to think of other stuff that might be handy to tell Indigo to tell Alexa to do. Hmm...

Top