blueman2

So do you have the Home Control model with the light/plug buttons?

Eric, I do not have one of the newer Harmony remotes. Still using the old 900 version. I see that there are 2 options now. One is the regular Smart Remote, and the other is Home Control remote. Will either one work to integrate with the Echo, or do I need the Home Control version. I was not sure if the only difference was a few buttons or if they are fundamentally different. Thanks

Does anyone know of a list of all Alexa commands/words that can be used with Home Automation currently? Is it documented anywhere by Amazon? Finding out that giving the name Thermostat allowed a device to pass actual values rather than rounded brightness levels makes me want to see what other easter eggs there are in terms of wording for Alexa.

OK, I have it all working the way I want. Using the friendly name "Thermostat" the Echo will provide an unmanipulated number between 1 and 100 every time using {intensity.percent} variable. I also changed the device type to "Climate" but I am not sure that does anything. Setup: ====== Emulator: BWS's Hue Emulator version 0.4.4 running on RPi2 Mapper: Barry's AWS_config version 2.0.39 ISY firmware: 5.0.2 In Barry's AWS_config: =================== Friendly Name: Thermostat (IMPORTANT: use this name!!) Device Type: Climate (I do not think this matters, but what the heck) My On URL: /rest/vars/set/2/9/${intensity.percent} I have a program that looks to see if the State Variable 9 is between 60-71 and, if so, sets the heat setpoint to that value and sets the thermostat to heat mode. If between 72-80, it sets the cool setpoint to that value and sets the thermostat to cool mode. I also created programs on my ISY that Alexa can trigger to turn off and on the heating and cooling modes by voice command. To use, I say "Alexa, set Thermostat to 72" and this will put my cool setpoint to 72 and enable the AC mode on my thermostat. I can then say "Alexa, turn off AC" and it will go into off mode. I can later say "Alexa, turn on AC" and it will re-enable cooling mode using the last temperature setpoint. So far, it is working perfectly!!!! Eric and Barry, thank you both for the help and direction!!!

OK, I think I am finally there. I changed the friendly name to Thermostat and it is working just right!! (Thanks for the clue in your video, Eric!!). I am using {intensity.percent} and sending that to my ISY as a state variable. My command line is http://user:pwd@<ISY IP address>/rest/vars/set/2/9/${intensity.percent} This writes to the State Variable with ID 9. So far, it is working every time. I tried number from 1 to 100. Above 100 it does not work. It also will not take negative. Of course, not an issue for temp, but just checking. I can use "Alexa, set thermostat to 72" or "Alexa, set thermostat to 72 degrees" and both work every time so far (after about 50 tests). Now to write the program that will filter the values to ones that are reasonable, and then send them to my thermostat in ISY. (using 5.02 firmware)

OK, Something weird is going on. I created a new device and it works perfectly for whatever number between 0 and 100 that I give it. But then I made a minor change to its friendly name, updated and re-discovered, and it does not work anymore. Also, if I say "Alexa, set Heater to 73", it will give me 75 by rounding. BUT if I say "Alexa, set THE heater to 73" it works, most of the time. But sometimes gives me 100%. So something needs to be set VERY precisely to make this work. This proves it CAN be done, but must be done exactly right. I am using the same emulator as Eric2XU for testing. I will go back to the BWS one and see if it is the same. But there is some promise here!!

Wow, Eric. Thanks for the video. But first, are you a 2 child home now? Or is the baby still waiting to come out? Good luck!!! Now, on to your setup. If you go to your Echo web app, and look at connected home devices, does your thermostat show as a Hue Light? If so, then it would appear that Amazon does indeed pass along the entire intensity variable, unmodified, to the Hue for lights. Can you confirm this? I will look at your code (I am NOT an experienced coder, but I like to play) and try to better understand what you have done. THANKS for giving us hope!

I would prefer not to use a Skill, but rather the existing Alexa commands. The reason is that there is a higher WAF for saying "Alexa, set AC to 72" rather than having to say "Alexa, tell Sandy to set AC to 72". Just simpler. Though I also agree I prefer to use my ISY to ensure the variable is not out of bounds or crazy. For that, I would just have the Hue Emulator send the intensity value to a State Variable in the ISY, and use that to set the thermostat in a program. That is what I tried to do, but the manipulation of the intensity.percent variable (rounding to 5) make this a no-go. The question then is who is doing the manipulation of the intensity.percent value? If it is Amazon, then we cannot use intensity.percent. We would need to find another variable that is passed along without filtering. If, on the other hand, Amazon is passing to the Hue Emulator the exact number, and it is the Hue Emulator that is adjusting the number (rounding to 5, making any value above 80=100, etc) then we would just need to adjust the Hue Emulator. Maybe ask BWS to create a new {intensity.actual} value. Does anyone know if it is Amazon or the Emulator that is doing the current manipulation/change of the {intensity.percent} value????

I believe that the Echo can be made to pass along values such as temperature since that is a supported command. Amazon is just doing pre-filtering of the number since it is for dimmers. Maybe the BWS people can find a way to directly pass along a variable. Maybe climate class devices would avoid this filtering?

Yeah, my typing was pretty poor. I corrected it. HOWEVER....... I did not realize until I starting testing that dimmer only works in increments of 5!! I was testing for 60, 65, 70 and it worked just fine. But if you ask Alexa to set Air Conditioner to 72, she will give you 75. This makes sense because you do not need to dim so precisely. Sooooo, we cannot use dimmer to control the AC. I wonder if there is another variable that is used for climate devices which will return the actual number you give Alexa? Darn, I was so close!

Alexa control of Heater and AC is now working great!!!!!!!!!! (Edit: No, it is not!!.... see 2 posts below) Silly me, this was much easier than I thought! I upgraded to ISY firmware 5.02, and am now able to set my AC and Heater with my Echo! Steps I followed: create a State Variable in ISY called Air_Conditioner. Note the ID number for that state variable (just to the left of the name). using Barry's tool, create an echo device link for your Insteon Thermostat. For me, I used the Thermostate-Main entry to create the device link. Rename it to Air Conditioner Then go back and edited the On URL entry, replacing the rest command with: /rest/vars/set/2/<state_id_number>/${intensity.percent}. Put in your state ID #. now create a program as follows in ISY: IF $Air_Conditioner >= 68 Then Set 'Thermostat - Main' Cool Setpoint '$Air_Conditioner Degrees' Else Now, if you say "Alexa, set Air Conditioner to 70", it will set your cool point to 70 degrees!! The reason for the IF is twofold - makes sure you do not set your AC to some ridiculously low setting - Causes the program to run anytime you change the setting via Alexa Give it a try!! you can do the same for your Heater Setpoint by making the obvious changes.

That would sure make it easier. Very ISY specific, but would be very nice.

OK, I sort of have my Insteon Thermostat working with the Echo. I manually put this into the command for my Thermostat-Main device: /rest/nodes/<thermostat-device-ID>1/cmd/CLISPC/${intensity.percent} It works, setting my AC to whatever temperature I give to Alexa by saying "Alexa, set Thermostat to 74". However, the ISY divides the number you give it by 2 because every digit is 1/2 of a degree. So if I say "Alexa, set Thermostat to 74" it will set the thermostat to 37. As a work around, I can change the command line to write the ${intensity.percent} to a State Variable in the ISY. I then use a program to multiply this by 2, and using the 5.0 ISY firmware write the variable to the thermostat I am not on 5.0 yet so cannot confirm this will work but it should assuming V5 allows writing variables to a device. (??) (edit: corrected to multiply vs divide per LeeG message below)

Jay5, First, congratulations with the new addition to your family!!! Let us know how it goes. Get some sleep now. You will need it. Second, thanks SO much for sharing. I had no idea that Nest had an open API to access. This information alone is very valuable to me. Thanks for adding your work to the community! Blueman2

Excellent Barry!! I am traveling but look forward to getting your new version installed and tested when I return. Great news on the z-wave addition. You have done a fantastic job on documentation. Your background is really showing.

Not sure, but it seems to be about 25% per dim/brighten command. Not settable that I know of. But you can of course give an exact % to go to.

Thanks again, Barry. I am thrilled with the dimming!!! At least this shows variables like this can be passed to the ISY. I changed all the SET commands to CMD commands using update. Both seemed to work just fine, but better to use what is more standard. I have found the easiest ways to set a brightness level is: Alexa, set the den light to 60 or Alexa, brighten the den light or Alexa, dim the den light

Barry, noticed you had a 2.0.0 version up. I gave it a try, using the one time update button. I pressed 'next' as it evaluated each device. I did notice that it incorrectly thought some of my switches were dimmers and added intensity setting. I will track down the model of those switches since I am guessing it is related to certain model numbers. Also, after the update, 8 of my 29 device listings were not discovered by Alexa. No correlation I could find on which ones and why. I ended up switching back to a backup of my database. I did add a few new dimmable scenes into alexa. Alexa accepted the dim command, but lights only turned on or off. No dim so far. By the way, I noticed some scenes are given a CMD and others a SET command by your tool. Curious what the differences are between them. Fun to play with this!! EDIT: I GOT DIMMING!!!!! I am still unable to make my scenes dim, but I did delete and the re-create a lamplinc device on your AWS-config tool and sure enough, it dims!!! I tried 10%, 30%, 53%, 100%, and they all worked. BARRY!!! You da' MAN!!!!! Now to figure out why the scenes are not dimming. I think I will just delete everything and re-create from scratch, and see if that helps.

You are up kind of late on the east coast! Thanks for the update. I cannot wait. There are really only 2 things that are missing for me: setting temperature by degrees for my HVAC, and dimming lights. I will be curious of the dimming capability can at some point be extended to work with thermostats for a specific temperature.

Holy crap!!! Dimming!?!?! Please don't make me stay up all night wondering how you did that!!!!!

Working just wonderfully, Barry. Once again, thank you for sharing your work! Bob

Doh! I forgot to RTFM. Beautiful!! More than I hoped for in terms of custom endpoints. I will start using now and let you know how it goes! Bob

Thanks, Barry. Just installed 1.1.82 and all is working perfectly! What does the 'list of control addresses' refer to? I did not understand that reference.

My only aversion to "cloud solutions" is that they are typically just an excuse to force the consumer to put 'some function' on another computer so that the owner of that computer can charge you a monthly fee. Often, the 'some function' does not need to be remote and would work just as well, probably better, on a local computer. It is done remotely just to generate fees. I think UDI feels the same (prefers not to use portals unless truly required), but is trapped by Amazon into using a portal solution. It will probably mean monthly fees though. The size of those fees will determine whether the portal is worth it. But I am preparing myself to continue to use my own bridge and keep all functionality local on my LAN. Time will tell which route will be better, but I urge everyone doing development today not to slow down or wait for a portal solution.

Frankly, I would leave it as is for now. I only have one custom device for now anyway. If I add more later, I can either create an endpoint to distribute the commands or I can just change the custom IP in the .ini and add the other device. But as for the 'update' bug in the custom settings, it would be nice to have that fixed!!! Also, if it is fixed,then I can manually adjust the http command to whatever I want in the URL on and off boxes. Thanks again for being so kind to share your work with us. I really appreciate it!!