Home Automation gone bad!

Hi,

The other night a friend of my daughter came over to watch a movie. He is a 5 year old boy. As soon as he heard me switching lights on/off via Alexa with the Alexa Hue Bridge he started to tell Alexa to switch lights on and off and it wasn't funny anymore . So I am looking for a way to prevent this in the future. I have coded all my light triggers to use a conditional override variable so that I can disable light triggers individually per light or for all lights. I can then toggle these override variables or the "all lights override" variable in a control page to prevent light triggers from executing. But since the Alexa Hue Bridge toggles the device directly it's bypassing the override variables I created. I could create an Action Group for each light, where I could evaluate my light override variable, and then define a virtual device that I can link in the Alexa Hue Bridge plugin but this seems like a lot of work. I looked at disabling the Alexa Hue Bridge plugin but it not possible (see this thread since you can only restart() plugins. Any suggestions on how to temporarily disable the Alexa Hue Bridge plugin?

Thanks!

Plug Alexa into an Indigo-controlled plug socket?


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Just disable the Alexa-Hue Bridge device (Comm Enabled column in main UI).

That will work, but coincidently, I spotted a bug in the code related to disabled devices so you might get an error thrown in the log which you can ignore.
I will release a fix for this in a day or so.

Thanks autolog, that's exactly what I wanted. I created a new variable Alexa_Hue_Bridge_Enabled and used a script on a trigger for value change. I added the variable on a control page as on/off button and presto! I can disable the Alexa integration with the touch of a button. Below is the script in case it helps anyone else:

Code: Select all

mydev = indigo.devices[86329839] # "Alexa-Hue Bridge 1"
myvar = indigo.variables[756081712] # "Alexa_Hue_Bridge_Enabled"

if myvar.value == "true":
    indigo.device.enable(mydev, value = True)
else:
    indigo.device.enable(mydev, value = False)



PS: Tested few times and got no errors in the log.

Actually I spoke too soon. When I disable the Alexa Hue Device it indeed prevents Alexa from interacting with devices but when I try to enable it again then Alexa still says the device it’s unresponsive. Is this the bug you will talking about? A plug-in reload seems to solve the problem.

There isn’t any voice learning function with Alexa is there? I was hoping amazon (and google) would add something like that after the Burger King debacle earlier in the year. That’d be the ultimate solution to stop unauthorised users hijacking your system!

There's this, but not in the UK yet.

I created a new variable Alexa_Hue_Bridge_Enabled and used a script on a trigger for value change

For an "automatic" method of triggering this, just use a Fibaro Button, labeled "DO NOT TOUCH" and leave it out where kids can find it.

Actually I spoke too soon. When I disable the Alexa Hue Device it indeed prevents Alexa from interacting with devices but when I try to enable it again then Alexa still says the device it’s unresponsive. Is this the bug you will talking about? A plug-in reload seems to solve the problem.

It wasn't, so I will take a look at it and sort it out.

Thanks for the feedback.

I created a new variable Alexa_Hue_Bridge_Enabled and used a script on a trigger for value change

For an "automatic" method of triggering this, just use a Fibaro Button, labeled "DO NOT TOUCH" and leave it out where kids can find it.

That’s the kind of thing I was expecting Durosity’s comment to be when I saw his notification pop up earlier.


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There's this, but not in the UK yet.

It sounds there are still far from what I want, which is to limit Alexa's skills by user profile but I think they will eventually get there. Multiple profiles is also useful, otherwise calendar, tasks, music, etc gets all mixed up. Clearly they are going to get to the point where they have so much context on who's talking that they can figure things out automatically.

For an "automatic" method of triggering this, just use a Fibaro Button, labeled "DO NOT TOUCH" and leave it out where kids can find it.

In the spirit of full disclosure, this would work on me, too.


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That’s the kind of thing I was expecting Durosity’s comment to be when I saw his notification pop up earlier.

I occasionally suggest sensible ideas

I’d take a much simpler approach. Put the child outside!


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I’d take a much simpler approach. Put the child outside!

Thanks Noel but I don’t think that Alexa is waterproof or likes being outside.