barrygordon

I spoke to Amazon customer service today. They said that Prime music may not be shared, only used by the Prime adult member of the household. That is a bummer. When you set up the sub accounts which required additional accounts in the Amazon household; did you do that directly through Amazon under account management or through the Alexa app? It appears that the Alexa app only allows you to set up adults in the household, but I believe that is your case as you indicated earlier. I have two adults and 4 children in the household now all setup through the Amazon account management. When I look at the Alexa app under settings only the adult household members are shown and since there are already two, it will not let me setup any more members into the household. By the way, thanks for all the advice / help on this.

Yes you are right. I will be playing with that this coming week. Thanks again

Interesting, I am using a ceiling mount on a Dot in the kitchen. Are you sure that a household can only have two accounts? I thought that a household can have as many accounts as desired. I will double check with Amazonas that means I will have a problem with the accounts all being able to access the prime music of the main account and may need to get a prime subscription for more than one account which I do not want to do.

Stu, Thanks for working with me on this. I that was what I did. I have to leave this activity for a while (family visiting) but will get back to it next week. Thanks for the replies/comments/advice. My goal is to get it set up so that each Dot is in a separate sub account with a common set of spokens, the same for each Dot; and some spokens unique to that Dot which are a shorthand e.g. "lights" in addition to "Guest Bedroom Lights" for the Dot in the Guest Bedroom. I want all of the sub accounts to be in the same Amazon household so they can all play the same music from the Amazon Prime Library. This is the order I plan to do Things: 1- Set up all the accounts on Amazon. There will be 5 sub-aacounts and one master account. 2- Register each Dot (6) with the appropriate Amazon sub-account. One sub-account (Kitchen, a very large area) will have 2 Dot's. 3- Assign in Alexa app each sub-account as a member of the household which is owned by my master Amazon account which has Prime membership. 4- Setup the ISY portal to be knowledgeable of each of the sub-accounts. 5- Set up the correct set of spokens for each Dot/sub-account by adding a second spoken for the devices physically located in a room associated with a Dot. As an example; the guest bedroom will have the common spoken of "guest bedroom lights" and a second spoken for the same ISY scene as "lights" I know I can export the spokens for each sub-account, but there is no quick import capability so I guess I am going to have to do a lot of repetitive typing. The common set of spokens is currently for 103 devices. Do you know if any shortcuts to this process and is the order of performing the overall task correct? TIA, Barry

I double posted this since I thought it was not getting any traction. I replied in detail to what you commented in the other posting. My performance seems to be different than yours. The problem is (to me at least) when I added the second account to the first accounts household, it operates as if there are no spokens for the second account but rather it uses the spokens set up for the account that owns the household account. There is a spoken in the main account , the house hold account, that states "Guest Bedroom Lights" There is a spoken in the second account that is a member of the household for "lights". The spoken for "lights" no longer works on the Dot in the second account for the household; however "Guest bedroom lights" does work. The thing I will investigate tomorrow is to redo the spokens for the second account , it being a small number.

Perhaps I did not explain myself well. I agree on the assignment of spoken and how they are displayed. When I open the Alexa app in account A, only the account A devices appear. If I open the alexa app in account B only the account B devices are displayed. I agree that when setting up the spokens I must use the account to which the echo device is registered. Every DOT, in either account can play my Prime music. The Problem is when I go to the Dot in Account B and attempt to use any spoken associated with that account it states it can not find that device in my account. If I use a spoken for device A it works fine. It is as if When the portal logic attempts to find the spokens fora a given DOT and that DOT is in a household account it uses the spokens associated with the account that owns the household account instead of the account to which the Dot is registered. This is no problem for the Dot's which are registered to the account that owns the household, but clearly wrong for a Dot that is in a separate account but a member of the household. Perhaps I need to redo the ISY portal entry for the DOT in accont B. I had done that prior to assigning account B to the household. With regard to your specific comments: I do need to log into the appropriate portal account to create spokens. I agree The only anomaly is the listing of the devices in both accounts. I do not see that account A only shows those devices I set up in account A; and likewise for account B Other than that, everything works as it should. Spokens on one account are independent of spokens on the other account . Not in my case. Only the spokens for the household account, account A, work. And the work on all Dots independent of where that DOT was registered music requested on one account is not reflected at all on the other account. I do not know what you mean by this. When I request music it looks at the music in my Prime account, account A the household account owner, and plays it no matter which account the Dot is registered to In fact, although both accounts have several Echo device, only one Echo device at a time on either account will play the request. I agree, same for me

Originally I had only 1 account and 5 Dots. I then changed it to two accounts, call them A and B. Account A has 4 Dots and 103 devices. Account B has 1 Dot and 27 devices. The account B devices are a subset of account A with different spoken phrases. All was working fine. I then tried to play some music from my "Amazon Prime" account using the DOT in account B. It told me I couldn't because there was no "Amazon Prime" associated with that account, account B. Alexa/Amazon wanted me to buy a music subscription for account B for $3.99/month, or a second Prime membership for account B. I did some research and then determined that I should set up a household under account A which has the "Amazon Prime". I did that. I now have a household set up under account A that has account B as a member of the household. Music now works as it should. The household has 2 members, account A and account B. HOWEVER: The single Dot in account B will no longer recognize the 27 devices associated with that account with the simplified spoken phrases I had set up. It now recognizes the 103 devices set up in Account A and the spoken phrases associated with them. The Dots in account A work with the 103 Devices I set up with account A. It seems as if the Dot in account B is now associated with The "Household master account" which is account A. Not what I want. If I look at the Alexa App under "Smart Home", all appears correct. The single DOT in account B has discovered 27 devices correctly and the 4 Dots in account A have 103 devices associated with them. Is this a bug in that the portal is associating the single Dot in account B with the Household as opposed to associating it with the correct account, account B? If it is not a bug what have I done wrong? To get all the capabilities I desire I need to use the household capability to get the music I want at minimum cost; and need to have a Dot associated with the spoken phrases of the account it is registered under, not the household account of which it is a member. Will this be corrected?

Originally I had only 1 account and 5 Dots. I then changed it to two accounts, call them A and B. Account A has 4 Dots and 103 devices. Account B has 1 Dot and 27 devices. The account B devices are a subset of account A with different spoken phrases. All was working fine. I then tried to play some music from my "Amazon Prime" account using the DOT in account B. It told me I couldn't because there was no "Amazon Prime" associated with that account, account B. Alexa wanted me to buy a music subscription for account B for $3.99/month, or a second Prime membership for account B. I did some research and then determined that I should set up a household account under account A which has the "Amazon Prime". I did that. I now have a household set up under account A that has account B as a member of the household. Music now works as it should. HOWEVER: The single Dot in account B will no longer recognize the 27 devices associated with that account with the simplified spoken phrases I had set up. It will now recognize the 103 devices set up in Account A and the spoken phrases associated with them. The Dots in account A work with the 103 Devices I set up with account A. It seems as if the Dot in account B is now associated with The "Household master account" which is account A. Not what I want. If I look at the Alexa App under "Smart Home", all appears correct. The single DOT in account B has discovered 27 devices correctly and the 4 Dots in account A have 103 devices associated with them. Is this a bug in that the portal is associating the single Dot in account B with the Household as opposed to associating it with the correct account, account B? If it is not a bug what have I done wrong? To get all the capabilities I desire I need to use the household capability to get the music I want at minimum cost; and need to have a Dot associated with the spoken phrases of the account it is registered under, not the household account of which it is a member. Will this be corrected?

I had not known about simple control when I built my RPi control system. It's "External" module is very much like what you have described as SimpleControl's basic operation. The IR module allows for high level IR control via a GC IP2IR itach. The external module currently handles my SPA system which requires multiple IP commands and my theater which requires a WOL first and then simple commands over IP. The part I like the best is that an RPi costs about $35. I am going to look at Simple control however. The difference between Men and Boys is merely the price of their Toys.

Too bad. It would save me, perhaps others, a lot of time when setting up multiple accounts with a common set of spoken phrases. You now have a request from a forum user to implement Import. perhaps that will help. I would be happy with a QUAD (quick and Dirty ) version with no checking and no import error logs. Perhaps just a checksum on the export file to validate that it is a valid export file which should be correct. Probably good enough for what I want.

The ISY portal has an Export capability which will save all of the entries defining the accounts "spoken" phrases and actions to an external file. Of what use is that if there is no matching Import capability? Am I missing something? I would like to use an Export/Import capability to convert from a single account to multiple accounts so I can have specific phrases for each echo device (room oriented) and also have a common base identical on all echos. For example the phrase "Turn on the guest lights" would exist in all echo's, but the Echo in the guest room would have a phrase "Turn on the lights" that would turn on the lights in the guest room. The master bedroom Echo would have the same phrase turn on the lights in the master bedroom. I know this can be done and I know how to do it but it would be really helpful if I could pre-load each account with the common base which I have exported using a matching Import. An Export capability with no matching Import seems kind of useless to me.

smithlevenson, What is the question you want a straight answer to? Skipping any issues on the voice recognition aspects of the Echo's (very dependent on placement, room acoustics and Amazon server load) I am getting very good results with the following paradigm. I use no skills, just what UDI supplied as the Echo Portal. I have a finished skill but have not found it necessary to meet my needs and I don't like the required extra phraseology needed (Alexa, Tell <skill> . . . ) I am using a single account but will probably change that this weekend. It would be very helpful if the UDI skill had an import function (it has an export function, so why not an import as export seems useless without import). with an export/import setting up additional Echo systems with a common set of spoken words would be much simpler and less time consuming. Specific accounts could then be tailored with additional spokens germane to the devices location. All of my spoken phrases cause a scene or program to be executed. Many of my programs just reference a network resource. The network resources all reference a TCP server (not http) running on a single Raspberry Pi. The Pi has several modules each of which listens at a different TCP port. The ports represent the functions that perform: IR transmission using a global cache. Input is which GC unit, which IR command file, which specific command and which GC port to send it out on. Audio (voice) announcements. Input is which rooms to send the announcement to, an optional sound to precede the announcement text and a text string to be spoken. That is how I handle Caller ID and the house doorbell. Close/Open any one of 16 relays that control things like garage doors. External systems, to do an On/Off. Currently under control are my Home Theater, my Pool Lights, the Pool waterfall, and the SPA. This action is handled by a small configuration file that instructs the Pi what to send and where. It is somewhat tailored to each "External" device/system I own. The PI does other things in conjunction with my Home, since it acts as the overall home controller. Voice initiated operations are extremely fast dependent only on the current amazon load on it servers The code for the Pi (model 3) sits on a 16Gig microSD card and is written in NodeJS. I am planning on releasing the code to this community, but only to those capable of dealing with nodeJS on a DIY basis. It is tailored to certain external devices (IP based relays, IP based input sensors, Global Cache IP2IR devices), but the modules could be changed to use any similar component. I am just starting to write the documentation for the system but will need to take a break for visiting family. The Pi will work with any device/system that can send it TCP commands. and can control any device that operates via TCP or UDP commands by the addition of new modules or tailoring of existing modules. Text to Speech (TTS) is done in the Google cloud (free service) using the "Ivona" voices.

I am a little confused. I have set up a second amazon account with a different userID/ password. in the ISY portal I have set up a second account that matches what I have as the second amazon account. I see that the account has to be approved by the owner ? is that me or the UDI people I see it also has to verify the email address. I assume that will be done eventually and I need to wait before I can continue. Does Amazon allow for sub accounts or does each separate echo require a complete new amazon account ? Is there a tutorial anywhere on setting up multiple ISY portal accounts as what I am doing does not seem to be working Confused in FL

Thanks stu. That is exactly what I want to do. I noticed that the ISY portal can download all the "spokens" to an excel file. It would be great if the excel file could be uploaded. I assume I just have to set up 5 amazon accounts and then reference the appropriate account in each ISY portal. I think I will start slow and just set up one additional account until I see that I am doing it correctly and how much time it takes to load all of the stuff. It would be very helpful if the ISY portal system allowed you to "Clone" an account to a second account and then add/remove to tailor it. Michael?

I had that status for a while on the Pronto PRO. I still have Pronto PRO's (I just like the buttons and the fact I can use them under the covers with out looking at the for TV control). Naturally the Pronto PRO's talk to the RPi to control ISY based things or IR based things. I use one RPi running headless (no keyboard, no screen no mouse) mounted on the wall in my server closet. It is an RPi 3 with a 16G microSD card. running the latest Raspbian OS. All development and testing work is on my Windows development system using Visual Studio and NodeJS

I just put up a bunch of posts at various points in these forums. I guess you could search for posts by me. I am in the final stage of removing my Homeseer system which was the central controller. I should be done by next week. Then I will document all of the RPi modules and see who would like to play. The RPi has been up for several months running its current software I expect the reliability to be the same with the changes. I do not access the RPi from the Internet but there is no reason other than security paranoia that I couldn't. Every module has an IP interface the RPi can speak for any system in the house. Status events from the RPi are broadcast by the RPi using UDP and my own enveloping protocol as JSON strings. This is not done for the ISY as the ISY has its own subscription service, but would be a simple change which I may do for uniformity. The RPI does subscribe to the ISY so repeating the status change from the ISY would be trivial. I favor the UDP broadcasts as each room has an in wall iPad that is the main status/command device for the room, although Alexa is catching up fast as a command source.

I currently have one amazon account and one ISY portal, and 5 Amazon Dots. I am debating going to multiple accounts and multiple ISY portals (5 of them perhaps). I really don't want to screw this up so I am going to seek help/advice first I think I can set up the multiple amazon accounts, but any advice is appreciated I am not sure how or where to set up the multiple ISY portals. Do I need to buy additional ISY portals (one for each echo?) I would like to have a common spoken set among all the dots, the spoken set I have now, and a smaller set for each dot such as "Turn off the lights" for the Dots in each room to control the lights in that room. Is there an easy way to do that or must all the "spokens" be reentered for each individual dot? TIA Barry

Throw an RPi into the loop as a central controller; write some code. You can then do it all including voice announcements based on events time, etc. I am thinking about releasing my full RPi system which has all of that operating in conjunction with the ISY (ELK, Insteon switches, Z-Wave thermostats network resources) Amazon echo/dots, and iPads I just am not sure what I would be signing up for as I take support very seriously. I am retired with a reasonable amount of free time.

I use an RPi as the central controller in my home. It has multiple modules all coded in NodeJS. There are modules for: Making announcements in any room in the house Handling caller ID and announcing calls to the iPads or the hoiuse audio announcement system Interfacing bi-directionally with subscriptions to the ISY to know what is going on and issuing REST commands as needed Handling all IR to any device needing IR Hosting my personal Amazon Skill, which is deprecated A lot of other stuff For IR; the RPi maintains a library of IR commands formatted for the Global Cache family (I use a GC 100 with 6 IR ports) . I build the library elements, including IR macro capability, using IR data files an a format developed by John Fine and myself we called .irp, or from Pronto HEX formatted IR files. Dot irp files are in english and define the IR protocol and the commands for a given IR remote. The library build process runs on a Windows machine. The Amazon echo will accept a command such as "Alexa, turn on the kitchen TV" This is a command for the ISY to issue a network resource command to the RPI IR module. This command is a JSON formatted command indicating which end device is to be sent which command (e.g. "KTV select" where KTV is the kitchen TV). The RPi has configuration information relating an end devices to a a specific IR file, a specific GC IR device and which port on that GC device is to be used. Response is very fast with no issues with stacked IR commands (macros) I have standardized in my home with JSON being the protocol on the LAN for home automation. I do all of the RPi and iPad programming in javascript (node JS on the RPi, CommandFusion on the iPads/iPhone). This gives me a large set of common functions. For the RPi I develop all the code using Windows 10 Visual Studio 2015. And just move the working and tested modules to the RPi. the RPi keeps an extensive log file as operations proceed which can be accessed via a Console module written in VB.net on my windows development system. The RPi runs totally headless. I use puty and WINSCP to support the RPi from my development system.

IMHO this is strictly an Amazon problem. I suspect that there are several issues afoot with the immense popularity of the echo devices. I only hope that Amazon sees this as an important issue and quickly works to improve the speech recognition aspects of the product All the nice things the Echo can do are wasted and useless if the device cannot reliably understand what it is being asked. I suspect we need to get on Amazon's case big time. I will be calling them shortly

I have 5 Dot's set up in 5 different rooms with a single account and a spoken list of 108 phrases. I have noticed that lately I got the following issues and am looking for advice or others seeing the same problem(s). I am getting a significant number of "I found several devices matching that name, which one do you want" I then repeat the room name e.g. "kitchen lights" and the command executes flawlessly. A Dot drops off line (blue light goes red) although the router is fine and internet communications are fine. The Dot generally comes back in a minute or so. The dot believes the wake word was heard although nothing like it was said. Sometimes there is no sound at all (rarely) . Is anyone seeing similar situations? Barry

MWareman. Thanks I just realized what you said about the operation of a scene. Since I am running on an iPad The only solution I see, if I want to be able to set the light level of a scene is to adjust all the scene members which are "Dimmers". What confused me is that in the Admin console when you look at a scene there are buttons to brighten it and dim it, and the percentage of illumination of each member is also shown. The scene I look at only had dimmable devices so it appeared that the illumination % was for the entire scene. I now have to decide if it is worth the effort to write the code or just leave it that scenes in my home cannot be easily dimmed from the ipads.

Okay so the documentation is wrong. I do remember a BMAN (begin brightness) that if sent would start raising the brightness level until a termination command (SMAN as I recall) was sent. I am sure this worked but I can not recall the format of the commands. can any one point me to info on these commands? Perhaps what I am remembering only applied to devices. I hate when I can't remember stuff

I know this has been asked before but I can not find the thread that discussed it. I want to set a scene to a specific brightness using the rest command described in the developers SDK to wit: /rest/nodes/<node-id>/cmd/<command_name>/<param1>/<param2>/.../<param5> eg: /rest/nodes/<node-id>/cmd/DOF - turn off a device or a scene Insteon - /rest/nodes/<node-id>/cmd/DON/128 - turn on a scene to 50% I send the command to a scene using the managed scene address. The response is succeeded=true status 200 However the scene intensity goes to 100%. it is as if the value after the DON is disregarded. I sort of remember there being a BMAN BMAN/1 and an SMAN command that will dim and brighten scenes. Is this described anywhere? Any assistance appreciated

Thanks. I did as you suggested and all works well now. One of my biggest problems is remembering how to do things that happen very infrequently. I should have just done a search prior to deleting the broken unit. Life would then have been much easier.