Home Automation with Amazon Echo/Alexa (old version using custom Alexa skill)

[@peterpowis4145]

nicest set up I've seen with alexa and smart home. great integration!!

[@BenGmuN]

Peter Powis Thanks very much :-)

[@mikeforster3574]

Your House is a paradise! :D

[@BenGmuN]

Mike Forster Thank you, most kind

[@DanielMentz_]

Hi, I am fairly new to home automation, now one question, doing all this what would i need? hope you can advise me

[@jonmark8407]

Hello Ben, just would like to thank you for your help, I have adjusted the code, much appreciated

[@BenGmuN]

Jon mark Good news, you're welcome, happy to help

[@jonmark8407]

Hello Ben, halfway there I do not get that error message. When carrying out a saying "echo tell phone lights on" I get nothing ? any suggestions ?

[@jonohunt2837]

Very nice! What's the name of your thermostat in Nest? Mine's called 'Hallway' so I have to say 'Set the Hallway to 21 degrees'. Do I have to rename it to 'heating' if I want to say 'Set the heating to 21 degrees'?

[@BenGmuN]

Jono Hunt Thanks! It was called 'Downstairs' but I renamed it to 'Heating' because it was more natural/easy to remember. Plus I realised I'm unlikely to need more than one with different names :-)

[@jonohunt2837]

Yeah, that makes sense. I'll do the same, thanks!

[@jonmark8407]

Can you please show us how you did this ? I am having troubles carrying out these instructions

[@BenGmuN]

Jon mark Hi Jon, which part do you need help with?

[@jonmark8407]

Hello Ben, thank you for your quick response. i am trying to upload the code onto lambda management, when running a test i get the following error message. { "errorMessage": "Cannot find module 'index'", "errorType": "Error", "stackTrace": [ "Function.Module._load (module.js:276:25)", "Module.require (module.js:353:17)", "require (internal/module.js:12:17)" ] }

[@BenGmuN]

Jon mark Hmmm... are you in the UK? I was basically blindly following Jason Ratliff's guide, so I'm definitely no expert! The only things I did differently were that I selected the UK (Ireland) region and used 'LITERAL' instead of 'AMAZON.LITERAL' as the slot type. You might be better off downloading the Yonomi app. Once installed, link Yonomi from the Alexa app (not the other way around) and create a routine to send a notification to your phone. Configure Tasker to trigger a profile when it receives the notification.

[@BenGmuN]

P.S. there is now a LightwaveRF skill in the Alexa skill store

[@jonmark8407]

Hello Ben, yes I did the following, I will have a try changing the setting to UK ireland

[@stevenblakeofficial]

Do you have to have a harmony hub or smartthing hub to do this though?

[@BenGmuN]

Yes, you need a Harmony Hub to control home entertainment equipment (TV, PS4, Nintendo, etc.). No Smartthings hub though.

[@stevenblakeofficial]

Ben Terry yes but I've seen people use a harmony hub and connect it to a smart things hub so what's the difference and why are they doing that. Where do you buy motor curtain rails ?

[@stephaniehindley451]

Hi, Love the videos, Been following Jason's guild but getting error "The built-in slot type AMAZON.LITERAL is not supported for this locale" how did you get around this. Many Thanks

[@BenGmuN]

Hi Stephanie, are you in the UK? There were two things I had to change - the first is that I had to make sure that my location in AWS was set to EU Ireland when I created my Lambda function (not Virginia as Jason's guide suggests). The second was that for each instance of the AMAZON.LITERAL slot type, I simply replaced it with just LITERAL - worked like a charm :)

[@BenGmuN]

Hi Stephanie, further to my previous message, I've potentially discovered an easier way of using the Echo to control home automation products for which there is currently no Smart Home skill in the Alexa app. Furthermore, you can dispense with having to issue your commands in the form of "Alexa, tell the *whatever* to..... " and can instead just say "Alexa, turn on the..." (which is much nicer). This can be achieved via the Yonomi app, as follows: 1 - Install the Yonomi app from Google Play 2 - Link Yonomi from the Alexa app - NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND 3 - Link Yonomi to your home automation products (if your home automation product is not directly supported yet, e.g. LightwaveRF, don't be dismayed) 4 - Create a custom 'routine' that simply sends a notification to your phone (don't configure an event or condition). For the 'message', enter what you want to be sent to your phone to trigger your Tasker profile. For example, 'Main Lights On'. When you are prompted to enter a name for the routine, this will become the name of the device, e.g. 'Main Lights' 5 - Create the 'off' routine in the same way - enter the message to send to Tasker to switch off the device ('Main Lights Off') and then for the name of the routine, enter the same name (important) but just add the word 'off' to the end, e.g. 'Main Lights off' 6 - Set up a tasker profile that triggers when the AutoNotification Intercept event is triggered. For the title filter, enter Yonomi 7 - For the task, I'm performing two things, the first is an AutoVoice Test command. The command I have specified is %antext the next step uses AutoNotification to cancel the Yonomi notification 8 - In the Alexa App --> Smart Home, run a discovery. All of your routines should now be listed as devices. Note that you don't see on and off routines as seperate devices The net result is that, when I say "Alexa, turn on the MAIN LIGHTS", Alexa sends a notification to my phone via Yonomi. Tasker intercepts this notification and 'converts' it to a voice command (I had already set up AutoVoice profiles for all of my home automation) and then triggers the relevant task.

[@stephaniehindley451]

Hi Yes, im in the UK ill give it a try when i get home and let you know if i get it up and running

[@stephaniehindley451]

got it up and running now, works a treat.. im using tasker to control my lightwaverf devices.. how do i use the yonomi app to control the lightwaverf

[@BenGmuN]

Hi Stephanie, so, to use Yonomi to control LightwaveRF, here's what I've done - I had already set up voice control for all my LightwaveRF devices using AutoVoice/OK Google Integration on my Android phone, as follows: 1 - Install the Lightwaver app, which comes with a plugin for Tasker 2 - In Lightwaver, sign in to your LightwaveRF account and import your rooms (this imports all of your devices from the official LightwaveRF app) 3 - In Tasker, create your task to turn on your LightwaveRF device (e.g. turn on your kitchen lights). Select the Lightwaver plugin and select the device you want to control 4 - In Tasker, create a profile to activate the task. Here I am using 'Event --> Plugin --> AutoVoice --> Recognised' and an example of the command filter would be 'Kitchen Lights On' (if you're not familiar with AutoVoice, there are loads of helpful vids online) 5 - Link the profile and the task 6 - Repeat steps 3-6 to create the profile and task for the power OFF command So, to trigger this profile with Yonomi, I've done the following (you will also need the AutoNotification plugin): 1 - Create a routine in Yonomi that just sends a notification. For the notification text, enter exactly the same command as you have specified as your AutoVoice recognised command filter, e.g. "Kitchen Lights On" 2 - For the routine name, enter the name that you want your device to be identified by in the Alexa app (e.g. 'Kitchen Lights') 3 - Create the 'off' routine in the same way, but configure the notification message to use the off command, e.g. "Kitchen Lights Off" and make sure you use the same routine name, with the suffix 'Off' (e.g. Kitchen Lights off) 4 - In Tasker, create a task using the AutoVoice plugin. Select the 'Test Command' option. For the 'Test Command', enter %antext 5 - Add another step that uses the AutoNotification plugin to cancel the notification - configure Yonomi as the notification title 6 - In Tasker, create a profile based on an event using the AutoNotification plugin. Select 'Intercept' and configure the notification. For 'Notification Title', enter Yonomi 7 - Link the profile and the task What this will do is it will intercept the notification from Yonomi, read the text contained within the notification and send it to AutoVoice, as if you had spoken the command. AutoVoice will then fire the task, which can be anything. This was relatively straightforward for me, because I already had an AutoVoice Tasker Profile for each and every one of my devices, so I just had to set up the devices in Yonomi and create a tasker profile to 'convert' the Yonomi notification to an AutoVoice command.

[@TheRealStr8jackit]

Ok, I'm impressed! Is that a WiFi kettle?

[@BenGmuN]

Thanks! Yes it is - there's an official Android/iOS app, but it's complete toilet. Once it's connected to WiFi, it can be controlled via Telnet, which means you can use anything that can issue Telnet commands to control it. In this case, I'm using the Send/Expect plugin for Tasker :)

[@TheRealStr8jackit]

Ben Terry cheers. I googled it straight after watching your vid and found it on Amazon. What software are you using for Alexa to communicate with your kettle, TV etc?

[@TheRealStr8jackit]

Nevermind. I just saw the rest of your message lol

[@BenGmuN]

No worries ;-) In this video, the TV/Playstation/AV receiver is being controlled by a Logitech Harmony Hub. The Echo sends an AutoRemote message to Tasker (Android), which then fires a task that uses the Harmony Tasker plug-in.

[@Yaboringme]

i don't care how fat and lazy I'd get. that's awesome

[@JTvlogs984]

Alexa where is my Fleshlight ^_^

[@BenGmuN]

Ha! I have a tough enough time convincing my wife that we need smart light switches :-P

[@JTvlogs984]

hahahah :)

[@GJBedrin]

such a sad "Christmas" ttee

[@BenGmuN]

You're absolutely right ;-) Basically I just haven't bothered to rename the WeMo switch since we used it for the Christmas tree - come the 1st December (or earlier, if my wife gets her way!), we'll have something much nicer in place!

[@Jason-fz1zd]

Being lazy like me 😄 my home has my echo do everythibg just by my vioce it's definitely cool but it would suck if you loose wifi 😄