ahwman

That's wonderful news! Thanks so much for the confirmation... By the way what's the feeling regarding when we might see final approval for the ISY skill? Chuck

That's encouraging, thanks for sharing...

Yeah, you're probably right as I suffer from analysis peralisys . That said, I did purchase two Edho's for $149 and should be delivered this Tuesday. I wonder how close UDI is to getting the ISY skill published? Hope soon!

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. I'm just concerned that the upcoming ISY skill is going to introduce a significant delay in processing commands since it has to up to the cloud, be processed, then back down from the cloud to the ISY, etc. whereas an emulator is processing all requests locally. I just haven't had good luck getting the emulator to work on my Windows VM...

Three questions: Does IFTTT require the ISY portal? If not, how does IFTTT communicate with the ISY? Is there a lot of latency executing commands? Thanks so much, Chuck

Thanks for the explanation. It sure would be nice if we could craft custom commands as that would eleiivate the issue with using unatural language, i.e. "Turn on window blinds". Oh well, maybe in the future...

I was watching a few YouTube videos today which utilize Echo skills to tie into HA like the ISY portal will eventually do. That said, there were huge delays sometimes as much as 15 seconds between issuing a command and the execution of it. I certainly hope we don't see these kinds of delays with the ISY portal & Echo integration. Any thoughts?

With all of the options out there, is there currently a way to truly customize voice tags for Echo? Example: "Alexa, skip commercials" vs. "Alexa, turn on skip commercials"? I guess what I'm asking is if Echo can only take action on "On/Off/Dim" commands or can it also take action on custom scripted commands? At the end of the day, I'd like to be able to use natural language for my HA tasks other than just lighting.

I'd love to get it working since it would save me the aditional cost of purchasing the portal. Is there a well written step by step to follow? I did some research on the error I was getting and it seemed to indicate a port conflict and that's where I threw in the towel... Also, does the emulator allow you to set up custom names for programs, devices and scenes? Thanks for your help, Chuck

Every time I tried to run the configuration app, I got a 404 error if memory serves me correctly. It never did pull down my ISY devices, etc. My firewall is disabled on the Windows VM.

Are their security concerns to consider using this method as it appears that the ISY username and password are sent in plain text via the URL. I'm hoping I'm wrong about this...

I have already spent many hours trying to get the emulator working on a Windows 7 virtual machine without success. So I'm assuming my only other option is to use the ISY portal unless there is a way to directly tie IFTTT between the Echo and ISY. The reason I am using this method (LampLinc tied to multiple scenes) is to get around having to use the soon to be released ISY skill as it creates much less natural language when launching programs since the skill must be involved in order to do so. It's the difference between speaking "Alexa, ask Izzy to run family room tv on" vs "Alexa, turn on family room tv" using my method... I hope that makes sense... Chuck

A LampLinc has 100 levels ranging from 1% to 100% brightness. By simply using scenes which incrementally ramp up brightness levels by 1% and using programs to monitor the LampLinc, it's possible to link 100 unique scenes to a single LampLinc. I'm already doing this and it works perfectly. The only hiccup is that turning off a scene sets it to 0% brightness and you lose the ability to trigger based on status in programs.

Interesting idea and makes a lot of sense. However, this could cause other issues since it's not aware of the device state especially if I turn on/off one of these devices using another means, be it remote or using my iOS devices. This would then put it out it out of sync. The other issue is that it doesn't solve the syntax issue as I would then be saying "Alexa, turn on family room TV" to turn it off. Until we get virtual device support, this may be the closest we'll get to natural speech...

Just wanted to post an update. I have created over 50 scenes using this technique and they appear to be working flawlessly when I manually toggle the scenes, as I don't have an echo yet to verify. That said, there are two issues be it small which I don't know how to overcome and hope through the great minds of this community there is an imaginative solution. • You can only toggle these scenes "on" using this technique since toggling the scene off returns the LampLinc "on" value to 0 and can no longer effectively be measured by programs. • This causes the syntax to be a bit odd. Example if I want to turn off my family room tv, I must say "Alexa, turn on family room tv off". The name of the scene is in fact family room tv off, but requires "on" to be used in the syntax. I was trying to think of a way to incorporate variables to solve this, however I'm stumped for now... Any ideas? Chuck

Actually I bought 2. $149, figured I better take advantage of it.

Xathros, You're the one that gave me the idea! This is a game changer, at least for me...

I just finished doing this exact thing and it works like a charm! I created a new scene called "Family Room TV" and linked an unused LampLinc to the scene as a responder. The scene is set to turn on the LampLinc to 1%. I then created a program which I called "(FAM) TV" using the following logic: If Satus 'Guest Bedroom / GBR (Lamp)' is 1% Then Resource 'FAM TV - On' Else Resource 'FAM TV - Off' The best part is that the program name has nothing to do with the interaction between the Echo and ISY as it will use the scene name which in this case is "Family Room TV". So I can simply say "Alexa, turn on family room TV" instead of having to say "Alexa, ask Izzy to run family room tv on"... Beautiful!

Makes perfect sense, however since I want to create multiple IR commands relating to a multitude of devices, I'm thinking a simple way to do that is by creating scenes as you suggest which would turn on my LampLinc (not currently in use anyway) to a specified brightness level (different for each IR command) and then have a program looking for a certain brightness level to then execute the appropriate network resource. This would allow me to use a multitude of IR commands tied to a single switch. What do you think? Chuck

I love your creativity and it's got me thinking. However, I would need to link each IR command to a different physical switch or am I missing something? Thanks, Chuck

Agreed, however in my case I use an ISY network resource for each IR command covering each of my IR components which to my knowledge can only be executed through an ISY program. That said, the only way I can see controlling IR devices in my situation is by using the Eco skill to execute these programs containing the appropriate network resource correlating to the IR component I wish to control. As much as I'd love to be able to say "Alexa, turn on the family room TV", in reality I would have to say "Alexa, tell Izzy to run program family room tv on".

Based on what Michel has said, the only way to launch programs on the ISY using the Echo via the portal is to use the skill name followed by either run or execute, i.e. "Alexa, ask Izzy to run...". I see no way of grouping programs into scenes on the ISY at least not yet. I'm hoping that down the road this will all change and we will have much more granular control over naming devices, programs, etc. for use with the Echo.

Based on a post I read from either Michel or another UDI mod, we definitely can run programs using the skill, however we can't create custom name tags for devices or programs as they will simply be generated using the existing names found on your ISY. Furthermore, you will also need to preface your request with either "run" or "execute" to launch a program. So, based on my set up this could get a bit clunky using the following example: Let's say I wanted to turn on my family room TV. The syntax would be "Alexa, tell Izzy to run family room TV on". It's not the end of the world, however it would certainly be much more advantageous to be able to use more natural language rather than having to think in computer terms. Perhaps once we have virtual devices, this issue could be solved...

This is very helpful. Out of curiosity, I am curious to know why you would switch over from the Hue Emulator if it's working well and also free to the ISY portal, especially since you can create custom name tags which I don't believe you will be able to do using the portal. I'm in no way beating up in the ISY portal as I most likely will be using it myself. I'm just trying to understand the differences between the two... Thanks again for your info as it's very helpful, Chuck

I'm in the same boat as you and very careful about opening new credit accounts so it wouldn't be worth it in this case. I'm thinking of waiting until Thanksgiving as I would think we might see a better deal. Any thoughts?