randyth

The Firmware and UI are both Insteon_UD994 v.5.0.13 (2018-07-06-18:02:27)

Just got around to installing the new Z-Wave board. It didn't go flawlessly, but everything appears back to normal now. For reference, I have nine Z-Wave devices: three switched outlets, a multilevel sensor, a thermostat, a repeater, and three Schlage Connect locks. This is in addition to a bunch of Insteon devices. The first attempt at Z-Wave | Tools | Restore resulted in an "Ignored unsupported unsolicited Z-Wave message" dialog box followed immediately by a "The Z-Wave dongle has not been restored. The data could not be written to the Z-Wave dongle" dialog box. Next, I simply tried Z-Wave | Tools | Restore again, this time with apparent success. However, the ISY was not able to access most (all?) of my Z-Wave devices. So, I tried a Z-Wave | Tools | Heal Z-Wave Network, but that did not help. Finally, I simply closed and re-opened the Admin Console, did another Z-Wave | Tools | Restore, and then did a Z-Wave | Tools | Synchronize | All. That did the trick! All my Z-Wave devices appear to be responding normally. Because everything seems to be working, I have not tried the Z-Wave | Tools | Heal Z-Wave Network option because, well, if it ain't broke don't fix it. I was a bit paranoid about my having to exclude/include my locks after all this since I've had trouble with them in the past, but they appear to have survived the ordeal unscathed so an exclude/include was not necessary. I was a bit sad to see the board did not accept my handy old antenna, but I'll get over it. -Randy

...a couple more things you might look into.... If you received a "Body lacks required accessCode field" error, it's likely because the JSON in the body is malformed. As for generating a new access code, you can do this by disabling and re-enabling the skill, as you probably know. However, you still need to launch the skill after doing this ("Alexa, open Notify Me") to trigger the email. Launching the skill is what triggers the access code email. -Randy

Hi Dave, Could you message me with the email address you used to register your Alexa device? With that I should be able to hunt down any problems. Thanks, -Randy

Ugh! Must be because it links to Amazon's US site. You should be able to review the skill in the Alexa app (click on Skills, search for Notify Me, click on it and then scroll down to Reviews). In any case, I'm very glad you like it! -Randy

It is expected in that it is how Amazon implemented their notification system. This behavior could easily change in the future, of course, if Amazon decides it's better to let music continue after playing a notification. For what it's worth, I've discovered you can say, "Alexa, resume" to get the music going again. -Randy

Whoa, wait, what?! Is this the email Amazon SPAMs (er, sends) out every week? You better not be pulling my leg. In any case, I would greatly appreciate it if the people who find this skill useful help out my efforts by giving it a positive review here on Amazon's website. (Yes, a shameless plug -- sorry.) It took a good amount of talking to convince Amazon to let this thing loose since, well, it's not exactly the "mass market" type of thing they are used to approving. Good reviews help convince them I'm not just a crazy nerd trying the abuse my access to their notification system. Well, I might be, but I'm a harmless crazy nerd. -Randy

Glad I could help.

Did you launch the skill yet (that's what triggers the email). And, if so, what did it say? To launch the skill, just say, "Alexa, launch Notify Me." -Randy

*UPDATE* This beta test is complete. A big THANKS to everyone who participated. As of March 20, 2018, the skill is now live for everyone. (Hooray!) If you find the skill useful, please do give it a positive review on the Alexa skill store. Positive reviews help support the development of this and other skills like it. Thanks, -Randy

Great stuff, Bumbershoot. FWIW, there's a bit of a hidden feature in the ways you can manipulate Alexa's speech, from specifying how she interprets numbers (time, date, telephone number, street address, etc) to the tone and speed of her voice. You can also play short audio files and even make her whisper. See this link for more info: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference.html#ssml-supported BE WARNED, however. If you don't get the syntax perfectly right, Notify Me will either tell you your accessCode is missing (because your quotes are mismatched, causing an invalid JSON structure) or pretend to send the message but not (because Alexa rejects it at the last minute due to bad syntax). With that warning said, here is an example of how you can make Alexa whisper: {"notification":"Would you like to hear me whisper? <amazon:effect name=\"whispered\">This is me whispering</amazon:effect>","accessCode":"amzn1.ask.account...

This is as designed. The Echo's ring glows (usually a light yellow) whenever you have a notification waiting for you.

It does appear that curl does not behave the same under Windows as on other platforms (ugh). It looks like Microsoft recommends you use their Invoke-RestMethod instead. Using PowerShell, here is the Invoke-RestMethod command you can use instead of curl: Invoke-RestMethod https://api.notifymyecho.com/v1/NotifyMe -Method POST -Body '{"notification":"Hello World!","accessCode":"ACCESS_CODE"}'

Oh, YES! The JSON (you might look that up) body data must be surrounded by curly braces.

Yes, though that string might vary slightly for some users. In any case, it is part of the access code.

I wish we could just make Alexa emit a notification as well, but Amazon does not officially allow that yet. As it stands now, notifications require some interaction from the user to hear them. As for Windows cURL, it might be a format issue. Is Content-type set to application/json in the header? Could you share the cURL command you are using here, scrubbing the access code from your example, of course.

Please do remove both curly braces when replacing {ACCESS_CODE} with your actual access code. I really should simply remove those from the instructions -- they are likely only creating confusion.

Spying on the skill's log files, it looks like you're finally in, Teken!

90 minutes! Ack! Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can control that (we tell Amazon to post all notifications immediately), but I'll look into our log files to see if there is anything funny going on with that initial call. Hopefully this was a one-time issue that has already cleared itself up.

The email will come from from notifyme@notifymyecho.com via amazonses.com. Did you launch the skill ("Alexa, open Notify Me")? If so, what did it tell you? (Note: Enabling the skill does not trigger the email; launching the skill does that.) -Randy

By last count, approximately 50% of the beta test pool is from Canada. -Randy

Hey Teken, My bad for "cross posting" an inline edit to my initial reply. I have since updated it to say we may have already fixed the Canada issue. We'd love it if you could verify this for us. We recommend you disable and then re-enable the skill to be safe. Thanks, -Randy

Interesting. A couple things: Thanks to steveng57, we recently discovered that this initial release does not work in Canada (d'oh!). I think this has been corrected, so please try to launch the skill again (launching the skill is what triggers the email with the access code). If your Alexa device is registered in Canada, you might need to disable and then re-enable the skill to get it working. Did you successfully launch the skill ("Alexa, open Notify Me")? If so, what did it say? Definitely let me know if you can't launch the skill. -Randy

Great. Just message me the email address associated with your Amazon account (the one you used to set up your Echo device) and I will email you an invite link. -Randy

Hey Memphis2k, Timely request. Please check out my post here about a new skill you might be interested in: