Alexa Announcements

[rapamatic]

I just saw this in my weekly "what's new with Alexa" email... I wonder if there is an API or other way to access this new announce feature...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer ... ouncements


[MODERATOR NOTE] Moved from the Alexa-Hue Bridge forum to this forum since it doesn't directly relate to that plugin.

[whmoorejr]

I know we can control indigo from Alexa (via Hue plugin).... I'm still trying to figure out a way to go the other way (Control Alexa from indigo). Maybe using the OS X app "Reverb"? But I don't know if that is controllable from indigo.... and I don't know if you can do "Announcements" from Reverb... but the literature says you can.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reverb- ... 7855?mt=12

[whmoorejr]

Alexa on Reverb.... "Sorry, you can't send announcements from this device, yet."

At least she said "yet"

[rapamatic]

To quote a great film:

“So you’re saying there’s a chance?”


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[whmoorejr]

Hopefully better than 1 in a million.

[norcoscia]

This was already posted about here and I have tried it and it works..

Put an Echo or dot next to you PC running Indigo - make sure it will pick up / hear the speaker sound

Have indigo say "Alexa, Announce (then put your message here)"

Indigo will speak it and every Dot and Echo in your house will make the announcement (unless they are in Do Not Disturb mode).

Works fine for me.....

[whmoorejr]

found this.... http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewtopic. ... 33&t=20547

Lets you send notifications to Alexa. Kinda cool.

[whmoorejr]

Another "Announce" work around that is still a gheto rig, but works and has potentially less delay.....

Using a Indigo PC speaker next to a Dot. Indigo can initiate an Alexa command verbally.... Have an action speak "Alexa, announce bla bla bla"

The alternative is.....

On the Alexa app -> Settings -> Routine -> "+" -> "When this happens" -> Voice -> Alexa, "Dinner time" -> Save
then
Add Action -> Set Volume -> Save -> Add Action -> Alexa Says -> Custom -> "Come eat" (250 character limit)

Now your indigo action will speak "Alexa, Dinner time" and the event you set up in the alexa app will execute. Beyond "Alexa Says", there are other options... (Traffic, News, Weather, Automation and Music)

The down side is it appears limited to responding from one specific device (versus an announcement across all devices). This may work well for you if you have that same "respond from device" hooked up as an Airfoil input via 3.5mm jack to your PC?

[noel1983]

Along the same lines this week I've discovered that with Alexa routines you can choose which device the routine is executed 'from'.

I.e. you can say Alexa its bedtime to ANY echo device even if they're wake word is different and in the routine you can specify which echo device will carry out the actions or more specifically play any audio.

This is AWESOME for me as for ages I've wanted to be able to trigger Alexa to do and play things based on Indigo triggers either a button press or motion at certain times.

So now with an echo dot and a headphone over it by my indigo pc I press a LWRF mood button just outside my bathroom (one button dedicated for me) indigo then speaks to the echo dot through the head phone and the bathroom echo then does the things i'm after, news, followed by weather followed by spotify playlist.

I know I could do this by saying Alexa then my routine but pressing a button is MUCH faster and more convenient than saying the same thing repeatedly.

Next step will be to get my ibeacons in place then it will know its me thats walked into the bathroom as I always have my phone with me and can then trigger it automagically!!

Hope this helps someone and if it should be in a different place/post plesae let me know

[whmoorejr]

I keep racking my head on this and it always looks like we are getting closer to a solution. With "Routines" you can do announcements. The trick is how to trigger the routine? Some devices are automatically recognized by echo as sensors that can be used to trigger a routine. With a smart things hub, you can do this with virtual devices which is where I feel we need to be. If authentication is the issue, then there may be a 3rd party solution.... a device that the echo can monitor for a status change that can be controlled by indigo. Depending on the number of statuses the device has, you may only get one routine per device (Motion yes, motion no). (another reason it would be preferable to have virtual devices as triggers).

[jay (support)]

This plugin can't present sensor devices because the Hue Hub doesn't support sensor devices, and it works by pretending to be a Hue Hub.

We understand the importance of a more native integration with Alexa (and Google Home), and it's pretty high on the priority list. We are working on the various pieces to make it work. No ETA but as I said it's pretty high on the priority list.

[roussell]

The open source guys have found a way to do Alexa TTS. It’s only slightly better than web scraping as it targets the same API does as the Alexa webpage, but it’s something. So far I’ve only seen it in Java and Python 3.x and attempts by me to create something we can use in Indigo -even if kludgy- have failed. I still plug away at it when I have spare cycles but nothing yet. I’ll gather the links and resources I’ve collected and post them so perhaps the Indigo hive-mind can help.

Terry


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[whmoorejr]

Anyone with updates on Alexa integration?

Best I have are using routines... but I'm still parking an echo next to a server speaker so the indigo server will say "Alexa, run Charlie". Where Alpha, Bravo, Carlie, etc... are automated routines for announcements.

[James]

This is what I am currently using to control Alexa.
Here is a previous post of mine on how to quickly get started using it:
viewtopic.php?p=180858#p180858

It also allows you to use SSML to customize how Alexa speaks using different voices, accents, volume/emphasis control, whispering, etc. I currently have it running in a Node.js Express server so I can send commands from anywhere on the network including my Indigo server. It works great for making Alexa say whatever you want, but you can see from the alexa-remote.js source that does quite a bit more such as:

• Manage smart home devices
• Manage bluetooth connections
• Set alarms/reminders
• Send custom push notifications to your phone
• Plus a lot more!

There is also a command-line tool which does many of the same functions: https://github.com/thorsten-gehrig/alexa-remote-control
Last time I checked it out, it was a pain to get the login/cookie working; but they have made some great improvements since then. I have been meaning to check it out again since it supports Amazon's multi-factor authentication.

If I had more free time, I would love to create an Indigo plug-in using these libraries to control Alexa (as well as adding support for devices compatible with Alexa and not Indigo). I am willing to help out if anyone else wants to take on the task though!

[autolog]

This is really cool!

I now have Roon on my iMac playing music to the USB linked Yamaha speakers.

The music Roon is playing is being monitored by my (beta) Roon plugin .

I have a modified version of the send-alexa-command.js file being invoked via an Indigo Trigger (playing music track changes) and an Action Group, such that Alexa is announcing e.g.:

Now playing in the Study, Riders on the storm by The Doors

Will continue playing with this.