intellihome

I decided to change my intent from "Tell Me" to "Give Me" because I can no longer use the intent Tell Me for normal Amazon Alexa interfacing. Such as, Tell me a joke or more importantly from things like Wikipedia answers, Alexa will give a short answer and then suggests if I want to hear more details say "Tell Me more". Of course I can not because if I say Tell Me more, it no longer works (development skill has priority). Changing the intent did not work so well. My Amazon developer account shows the change and now calls the skill Give Me but it still responded to Tell Me. I wrote a program and in the Then section said to execute the network resources but nothing changed. A few days later while trying to figure it out I noticed my skill ID was different then the original. Not sure why, I never deleted the Tell Me skill, I only changed the intent Tell Me to Give Me. So anyway, I changed the ID in my network resources saved and tested the resources with no faults. It still responded to Tell Me and not Give Me. I executed the network resources from a program and tried again. No luck. Deleted the Skill from my Amazon developer account completely and now everything is back to normal. I figured I'd just get myself into trouble (Post 1).

Somewhat related to this topic... I bought a Echo for the main room (Dots are in the other rooms). I bought the echo for the main room because this is where we like to listen to music, so I figured the dots sound ok but the full unit will sound much better. No surprise, it sounds great...however when the volume is turned up to 8 or higher, the echo can not hear me at all. I scream "Alexa" from about 8 feet away and she will not here me. I have to go over to it and press the button to get her to stop playing music. The reason for this post is warn others about this issue. Go with a Bluetooth speaker from a dot, keep them separated and you'll be better off.

Yep, everything Stusviews posted. I have one in the garage, one in the kitchen, one in the great room and one in the master bedroom. All on one account (therefore all capable of the full library) and they all play nice together. The kitchen and Great room are both within earshot of each other but only the closest one responds.

Well I followed the instructions and everything worked first try. Thank you blueman2 and 3po-labs.

This is something I'd really like to have. I can follow instructions and cut / paste code but I don't know much about programming. Is this something I should even try? I guess I have nothing to lose, the instructions in post #1 appear very detailed. Does anyone have an opinion as to whether or not someone with virtually no programming background should give this a try?

Mine were French, I has to forget everything and re-discover.

So far my favorites are 1. HA 2. Music (Amazon unlimited) 3. Timer (wife uses in kitchen often) 4. Alarms (so far so good, but I have a better trust with my iphone alarm) 5. Shopping list 6. Wikipedia things that come up in random conversation.

Update on my setup (as it may help others). With the info I learned on this thread in regards to the echo's only responding from the nearest one, I changed all four echos to "Alexa". Wow! this really works excellent. I moved around the dots and tested them over and over, sure enough only one responds (the nearest). If I'm right in the middle of them, still only one responds. Now they are set up in the four parts of the house. My wife started a Christmas mix in the kitchen and I asked Alexa for classic rock in the living room. Each one plays their own music. I told Alexa to stop, my classic rock stopped and her Christmas music kept on playing. She asked Alexa to turn off the kitchen main at the same time I asked Alexa to turn off the great room fans. Both worked independently and perfectly. For me. A single account works perfect! Thanks for the help in this thread.

Alrighty then, all is good. It's Friday cheers.

?? yep - read it earlier - See Post #19

Agreed in regards to the spouse. I've had automation for about 20 years. Started with X10 then over to Insteon. The wife never really liked it even though I had it running "almost" perfect. Then comes a device fail ($40 to $80 bucks each), then a PLM etc. The house sleep button can work 99 times but the one out of a hundred it doesn't execute I hear the sigh. However since I added the echo's she's really liking it. Gotta have the spouse approval to be truly happy.

Interesting, I did not know the echos can differentiate which one is closer. I do recall now, I read something about that on the forum. I wonder if that only works with separate accounts or if it would work with multiple echos on the same account like I have it setup? Unfortunately my house is a little "cave like". Cathedral ceilings and a very open floor plan. At first I found it impressive that I could speak loudly in the bedroom and the echo in the greatroom could hear me. Then I realized I don't want to shout so that's when I went with multiple. I do like asking the echo to play music via Amazon's unlimited music subscription. Have you guys gave any thought to that? I wonder if you can share the subscription across the other echo accounts? Being their all on the same LAN and Wi-Fi.

Thanks Gary, I appreciate your replies. I'm just making sure I learn the advantages and disadvantages of setting them up. Something tells me we're in for a ride with the way it works today and the way it's going to work tomorrow and the next day. Being cloud based, changes and upgrades can happen overnight. Hopefully they're always in our favor.

Actually...if I'm talking to my wife...Turn on the light, If talking to Alexa...Turn on the Bedroom main light. I get your point but still can't justify it (my personal preference). All my switches still work by pressing a switch on the wall. That takes care of guests, children and friends. Flipping a switch on the wall is way more natural for someone unfamiliar with my home. In your scenario, they would still need to know you need to say "Alexa" to turn on the light. I suppose if most of your rooms only have one light source, I could understand. Up until I tried it the way I have it setup, I did not know there was an option. I was going to follow the instructions on the wiki, I opened another account on amazon with my wife's email but when I went to setup the 2nd echo I used my phone app which inadvertently auto logged into my original amazon account. Then I realized the 2nd echo was working perfectly But how could this be.. I had not even setup a ISY portal sub account or linked my ISY, and approved in admin console or typed in new set of spokens etc etc.

Yes, currently I have two echos setup. One in the Greatroom (Alexa) and one in the master bedroom (Echo). I'll get my other echos today, I'll set the third up in the kitchen (Amazon) and the forth in the garage (Alexa). The one in the garage is too far away and isolated from the other "Alexa" in the Greatroom so I don't have to worry about that wake command being the same. I call my lights and appliances out like you mentioned ""turn on the living room light" or "turn on the bedroom light". I'd rather add a simple prefix to my spokens and have all of my echos have a full inventory of devices. An example might be if I were in Bed and realized I left a garage door open or the basement light on I could close the door or turn out the light from the bedroom. I would not want to realize..."oh, I can't control that device from this echo, I'll have to add it". Why not just have them all capable of every device. The other concern I have with multiple amazon accounts is I only have one Prime account. At some point will my other accounts have less capability? Will you have to pay for an Amazon Alexa account if you're not prime? Will you get slower bandwidth? What if you order something from Amazon via a non Prime account echo, now you pay shipping? You need bogus email addresses for additional Amazon accounts ? I have Amazon music unlimited (trial). Will that work on all the echos?...probably not, it's a paid service tied to a specific account. Who knows what else... As it is, I have one Prime Amazon account, one ISY Portal account and 4 echos that can control any device and I only maintain one Amazon account, one ISY portal and one set of spokens. The Amazon is brand new to me (going on my third day). Good luck with your system.

Of course even with multiple accounts if two echos heard your command "Alexa, turn on the light" , then a light would come on in each room (if you in fact had common commands like turn on the light). I do see how you could dedicate a specific echo to only one room's devices but i still don't see the real advantage to it. In most cases, you have more then one light in a room anyway so regardless if you have dedicated echo you would need to use a prefix. ie Alexa; "turn on bedroom main" or "turn on bedroom closet". Thanks for any insight, I'm definitely not arguing the point, I just feel there may be something more I'm missing. I've had my ISY and insteon setup for a very long time and the Amazon echo tied in is amazing. I just set it up and I'm trying to learn to use it as efficiently as possible.

Thanks for the responses. If there are no other reasons then I find it much simpler to just leave the one account and the one set of spokens for every device. I have 45 devices linked. All the devices have simple names, ie. greatroom main, greatroom recessed, greatroom doormer, kitchen main, kitchen recessed, garage door a, garage door b, etc Even though an echo dot in the garage will never be used to command a bedroom light off, it doesn't hurt to have the ability? If you never issue the command no harm no foul. My plan is to have four echo's total. One each in the garage, kitchen, greatroom and master bedroom. The one in the garage will never interfere with a house echos. The three in the house, I'll use the three wake commands to separate them. So in the end all four echos will maintain the ability to control all 45 devices yet I only have to maintain one set of spokens in the portal. Can you think of any other scenario where there could be a negative benefit to running this way?

Just wondering why the procedure in the Wiki says we need to setup a second Amazon account and then add a sub account to ISY portal when adding additional Echos. I added a second echo dot and inadvertently activated it on my primary amazon account. I just gave it a different wake up name. Now either dot works my isy/insteon automation perfectly. No sub account in the portal, no new list of spoken commands. Am I missing something?

I bought my first Dimmable LED bulb awhile back (sorry can't recall the brand, model). I really like the soft start and fade on incandescent bulbs. I am stocking up on these bulbs because the electricity savings is not great enough to me me to lose this capability on some of my fixtures. I tried to ramp up the LED bulb via a lamplinc and using the ISY as a controller (setting percentages). The bulb responded horribly. It took 55% to get the bulb to turn on. The bulb was pretty much full output at this point. Playing around with set points between 55% and 100% yielded inconsistent results. Slight changes in LED output or none at all. I'll find the LED bulb and retest to give a more helpful response.

Are you using the Motion detector in a lighted area, if so is it possible the Night-Only-Mode is set? Jumper 3— Night-Only Mode If you wish to have the Sensor operate only when dark, install Jumper 3 on both pins. Tap the Set button once, wait 10 seconds and activate motion to establish the new setting. Note: It takes 3.5 minutes (or 7 Set button taps) to detect the difference between day and night. See Day/Night Threshold below for details. Also, as LeeG suggested, did you check the event viewer to see if the command is reaching the ISY? Do you have an access point and/or Dual band devices close enough to the motion sensor?

Thanks everyone! Painless operation. The SD card replacement procedure was flawless. The whole procedure was less than 10 minutes and my system is back up and operating. Thanks!

I had bought a 2GB Kingston SD card but decided to purchase a Scandisk as recommended. In preparation to replace the SD card I attempted to Telnet to the ISY Shell and I am unable to. I can ping it and it responds without issue but fails to connect via "telnet 192.168.1.104" I have attached a word document with screen shots. I appreciate any suggestions. One other thing, My TX and RX lights are on steady. Do I have more problems than the SD card? The Wiki states a steady RX light indicates a bad PLC. scratch the screen shot - file size limitation...hmmmm, it's just a jpeg.

Hi all, Had a power failure, when restored the red led on the ISY blinks. Searching the forum it sounds like my file system is corrupt (I knew this would happen eventually with all the posts I've read). I have version 2.7.15 ISY99i (I have a good backup from March -no changes since) It sounds like I need to replace the SD CARD. In the Wiki it says I have to format and download the latest firmware. Is this latest firmware going to accept my 2.7.15 backup? Is there anything esle I can try prior to going this route (replacing the SD Card? Thanks!

Yes, it seems to be a simple communication problem although Quite a coincidence though. I have never had a comm error to the t-stat. Not one. immediately after the upgrade is when it failed...hmmmm I'll start the basic troubleshooting and post the results. As always, thanks for your support.

Upgraded from 2.7.12 to 2.7.14 V2 Venstar thermostat lost communication. tried to query a couple of times with no luck. Disconnected V2 Insteon adapter and reinstalled, current temperature displayed and red exclamation went away. Setpoint showed 16 deg. I changed the setpoint to 60 deg and the adapter lost communication again. Currently the T-stat cannot communicate with ISY.