Goose66

I have a tilde "~" in front of the "Auto DR" scene but it still shows up. I am running 5.0.10. Is there a way to hide this or is it legacy and something I can just delete?

I cannot for the life of me understand why there would be a system in place to disable specific functionality in an app like this based on region or account. I can see such a system for limiting streaming content or live events, but why in the hell would Amazon care if Canadians had the implicit targeting feature for their Alexa devices?!? That makes no sense whatsoever!

I think you need to read a page or two back in this thread. It's all there. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The Alexa mobile app is needed to create Smart Home Groups that contain an Alexa device (Echo, Dot, etc.) to enable the “implicit targeting” feature.

I reset my whole system for a new house in October of last year by just deleting every device from the ISY, factoring resetting the PLM and installing it as a new PLM, and then connecting the ISY to each moved device as I installed it by address and selecting the "Remove Existing Links" option. Worked great, and I got to keep all my old programs to modify or delete as I saw fit.

At least not an Insteon Hub AND an ISY.

This was fixed in the Portal update Sunday morning. You can now specify in the Portal how you want ISY devices and scenes to appear in the Amazon app (LIGHT, OUTLET, SWITCH, or SCENE)

Working for me too. I appreciate the responsiveness of this update!

You can use variables.

Thanks. I think Benoit's summary is right on point.

I think the roadblock here (other than changes to the ISY firmware and Admin Console) is that it is still a limited developer preview. They say in the announcement linked above that they will only be choosing a subset of the Skill developers that apply to open the functionality up to, and all the general developer documentation for the ASK side has no mention of this functionality whatsoever as of yet. So unless UDI applies and is accepted, they will have to wait for the functionality to be made available to all developers (which is probably a more likely scenario, really). In addition, we don't yet know if Smart Home Skills will qualify or if it would have to be part of the non-Smart Home ISY Skill (Ask Izzy).

I think I have completely failed at describing what is an otherwise simple concept. I will let someone else take a whack at it.

But you can't add your Alexa devices to a group (your Echo, Dot, Show, Tap, etc.)

I think the only way it works is 1) the user authorizes the skill to send notifications, 2) the skill adds notifications to the user's single notification queue (by account, not per device), the ring light on the Alexa devices turns yellow, and 4) the user says "Alexa, what did I miss" and she reads all notifications in the user's queue from all sources (Amazon shopping, Dominos Pizza, ISY, etc.)

Ii just check the PC interface again (alexa.amazon.com) and, no, it does not have that ability to add Alexa devices to Groups. You will have to use the iOS app or the latest Android app.

So they just announced an Expanded Developer Preview of Notifications for Alexa Skills on Nov. 28 and are asking for Skill developers to apply: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/833b9af4-26e6-47d2-a13d-bdbd9a257512/expanded-developer-preview-of-notifications-for-alexa-skills Benoit, are you going to sign up?

The AVS API is for building devices that implement the Alexa Voice Service. What we would need is support for adding notifications to the notification queue from the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) side, and for ISY provided support, more specifically the Smart Home Skill API.

Whatever interface you use has to have the ability to add the Alexa device to the group.

The name of the Smart Home Group is inconsequential to the implict targeting functionality. The primary considerations in naming the group would be 1) it shouldn't conflict with a spoken name for an ISY device or scene, and 2) it needs to make sense as a spoken name if you intend to turn the group (the entire group) on or off with a spoken command. Otherwise, it is SIMPLY THE PRESENCE of the Alexa device AND the devices categorized as lights (with the light bulb icon) in the group that enables the implicit targeting. Don't put a light in that group if you don't want it to come on when you say "Alexa, lights on" to the Alexa device in that room. So, for example, in your dining room, create a Smart Home Group called "First IT Group," and put the Alexa device in the dining room in there, along with any light devices you want to come on when you say "Alexa, turn on the lights" to the Alexa device in the dining room. Similarly, create a Smart Home Group for the living room called "Stu's Next IT Group" and put the Alexa device in the living room in that group, along with the lights in the living room you want to use, etc.

I think it just adds an extra layer of complexity on the user side to have the notifications be nodes. Why not just let programs send notifications through the ISY notification system that already exists, but have one selectable path for notifications be through the Skill to Alexa devices?

Looking at the API, it certainly makes the most sense for notifications to flow from the current ISY notification system through the portal and ISY Smart Home Skill to the Alexa device. I would like to see this as well, although it would mean substantive changes to the ISY firmware and Admin Console and the the timeline for those these days could be years. Perhaps the portal could be altered to allow a connection by a network resource setup on the ISY and then pass the notification along through the Skill. This would allow the functionality to be implemented while bypassing changes to the ISY firmware. I guess there is also the possibility that a third-party notification skill could be established that accepted outside connections to create notifications for an account, but I wonder how the certification process would go for that - probably a lot of security concerns around that. It will be interesting to see if IFTTT comes up with anything here. EDIT: While I see discussion of the flow on the AVS side, I am not seeing any documentation on how to implement this on the ASK (Skill) side. It's definitely available, because my Dominos skill will send me notifications. But I don't see a sample skill or example code for it, nor can I tell if the special classification of Smart Home Skills will have this feature available.

Just link the 2844-222 to the devices you want it to control and let it operate outside the ISY until 5.0.11. Just make sure you don't do a restore on the switches or modules from ISY and overwrite the 2844-222 links. WRK

Man, that's a bummer. I just don't think they have this implicit targeting thing fully thought out yet. After all the howling from the community about multi-room support, It is a step in the right direction, but too short of a step, IMO.

Doesn't look like it. I would like to see "fireplace" too. If it was just iconography that these types drive, then it wouldn't be a big deal to me (I have no intention on using the Alexa app as a control device). But because the implicit targeting feature appears to key of these types, it would be nice for the list to be more exhaustive. I have put in a suggestion with the Amazon, and I encourage others to do so, as well. They are generally responsive to the loudest voices, although as the product matures it seems it takes longer and longer development cycles to see new features. I will point out that the API does allow for multiple categories to be provided for each ISY device or scene (endpoints). This could also make for some interesting possibilities. There is surprisingly little technical information on how the "implicit targeting" feature, as they appear to be calling it, works and very little discussion on it on the Alexa developer forums. Here is the current list of values for the displayCategories attribute supported by the v3 API: ACTIVITY_TRIGGER CAMERA DOOR LIGHT OTHER SCENE_TRIGGER SMARTLOCK SMARTPLUG SPEAKER SWITCH TEMPERATURE_SENSOR THERMOSTAT TV

Benoit’s post just indicates that you can’t have two devices with the same spoken name, even if you put them In different groups. To use implicit targeting, you don’t want to name anything (device, scene, etc. ) “lights” so that this command is reserved for the implicit targeting. BTW, it does work for devices now and should for ISY scenes after this weekend. Don’t know why you’re fighting it.