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Amazon Echo - Connected Home Feature!


Michel Kohanim

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jon,

 

Eliza is in Alexa app under skills.  It is an implementation of the original Eliza program from MIT circa 1970's by J Wizenbaum, IIRC.  It mimics a particular type of Psycho-therapist

 

I saw a demo of that on YouTube but didn't know it was published :)  I see the logic for keeping it open with question>answer routine and maybe this could be used in the Izzy Skill but don't really see the need.

 

 

Jon...

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Where I see a need is in the connected home.  I would like to be able to end a command with "and then" and have Alexa come back to me to get another command ad infinitum until I say "nothing" or "stop".  Too many times I want adjust a couple of lights and which ones is variable so I don't want a thousand scenes

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Michel,

 

When you get to the step in the portal when you are assigning Spoken Nodes and scenes,  it would be great as you assigned them they no longer appeared in the drop down menu or at least turned red after you have assigned them a spoken name. After about 40 or 50 I have to keep going back to see which I missed.  It might not be any easy fix, but it sure would be helpful.

 

-Keith

 

Hello Keith,

 

Your suggestion has been added to the development queue.

 

Benoit.

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I know this is redundant, but I wanted to thank all the contributors who made the Echo integration possible.  I've been living with it a week and it's been flawless,  working via the Portal.  Rock solid IR commands sent to the TV and perfect commands sent to Tivo. Basic volume, play and pause of Sonos, etc...and of course all of the insteon devices and scenes work wonderfully. I really thought it was going to be more of a challenge.    As I use Echo with my automated home, I'm wondering if anyone is doing this for the elderly, lending control and independence to their lives.   What a great gift that would be.

 

Thanks

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I know this is redundant, but I wanted to thank all the contributors who made the Echo integration possible.  I've been living with it a week and it's been flawless,  working via the Portal.  Rock solid IR commands sent to the TV and perfect commands sent to Tivo. Basic volume, play and pause of Sonos, etc...and of course all of the insteon devices and scenes work wonderfully. I really thought it was going to be more of a challenge.    As I use Echo with my automated home, I'm wondering if anyone is doing this for the elderly, lending control and independence to their lives.   What a great gift that would be.

 

Thanks

I realize this isn't directly related to Echo, but how long did it take you to enter all your commands for a remote into a WF2IR, transfer those commands to network resources, make the applicable programs, and than tag them through the portal so that you could use them with the Echo?

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I know this is redundant, but I wanted to thank all the contributors who made the Echo integration possible.  I've been living with it a week and it's been flawless,  working via the Portal.  Rock solid IR commands sent to the TV and perfect commands sent to Tivo. Basic volume, play and pause of Sonos, etc...and of course all of the insteon devices and scenes work wonderfully. I really thought it was going to be more of a challenge.    As I use Echo with my automated home, I'm wondering if anyone is doing this for the elderly, lending control and independence to their lives.   What a great gift that would be.

 

Thanks

Could you please describe your approach to IR commands from echo/portal?

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Hello Keith,

 

Your suggestion has been added to the development queue.

 

Benoit.

 

 

Thanks Benoit.

 

ScottAvery brings up a good point:

 

Red or gone?  Will we be able to enter multiple spoken for the device?

 

If someone wanted the same device to have two or more spoken names, (I have trouble remembering one for all my devices) but just incase they want that,  it might should just change color.

 

-Keith

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The connected home list is needed for both. Those in the portal list is for the portal only.

 

Not sure I understand the answer, not sure if you are answering a different question.

 

I was asking does the skill have access to all devices with a spoken field.  Or can it only access the ones defined in the 'spoken nodes and scenes' window in the ISY portal.

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Alexa can control all devices in the connected home list (if you can pronounce it) even if you didn't specifically name it using the portal. But if you do assign a name using the portal, then you need to re-discover devices from connected home.

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Hello Keith,

 

Your suggestion has been added to the development queue.

 

Benoit.

 

 

Benoit,

 

Disregard my post of:

 

"ScottAvery brings up a good point:

 

Red or gone?  Will we be able to enter multiple spoken for the device?

 

If someone wanted the same device to have two or more spoken names, (I have trouble remembering one for all my devices) but just incase they want that,  it might should just change color."

 

 

 

I just tried to give a device a second spoken name, by accident, and it tells me it already has a spoken name.  So I guess it can just not show up in the drop down.  You probably already know this.

 

-Keith

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I'm not in favor or "named" devices being gone (what if I want to rename it), but I'd certainly appreciate having devices with given names be in a different color than devices that have default names.

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Alexa can control all devices in the connected home list (if you can pronounce it) even if you didn't specifically name it using the portal. But if you do assign a name using the portal, then you need to re-discover devices from connected home.

 

 

 

Stu-

 

I was under the impression that the ONLY devices Alexa could control using the Connected Home are those specifically mapped to spoken names via the portal.  Otherwise, the Skill could be used to access ANY device on the selected ISY whether mapped or not.

 

-Xathros

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Hello Keith,

 

Your suggestion has been added to the development queue.

 

Benoit.

 

As others have mentioned it would be good to be able to refer back to what's been added AND also to hide them to see only remaining ones.

 

Might you implement a check-box to show/hide previously added devices?

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This may be a rehash, but is there a good explanation of which one to use? I got lost between beta, connected home, skill, out of beta, etc. What are most of you doing? Having to say "Izzy" or not?

The Connected Home method works beautifully and does not require "Asking Izzy" for the majority of things.  You will still need the Izzy skill for access to thermostats and door locks, but for lighting commands, "Alexa <whatever> On/Off" or "Alexa, set <whatever> to <some>%"  works like a champ.

 

-Xathros

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Red or gone?  Will we be able to enter multiple spoken for the device?

 

Yes. A fixed quantity of 5.

 

Update: I misunderstood what the question was referring to. The answer is "Gone".

 

The list of devices, or programs, will contain only those that have not been used yet.

 

Benoit

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Stu-

 

I was under the impression that the ONLY devices Alexa could control using the Connected Home are those specifically mapped to spoken names via the portal.  Otherwise, the Skill could be used to access ANY device on the selected ISY whether mapped or not.

 

-Xathros

 

Let me clarify this one.

 

The skill works with the spoken entered on portal. Only those, and all of those.

 

The connected home discovery process (The discover devices button) will import all of the spokens from portal, except those not supported (thermostat and locks).

 

Benoit.

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Hi Benoit,

 

Everything has been working great in my home, nearly flawless in fact. I'm glad that you will be allowing 5 spoken names - this will cover the issue where different people in the home or even I may refer to something in more than one way depending on context.

 

The only other real pain point I have is related to the inability to dim/raise scenes - as I have quite a few which are just groups of devices which I always raise/dim together. I've seen a few discussions about this in the thread, but I was wondering if you have decided whether or not you will implement this in the future.

 

I know I can group devices in the Alexa app, but it would be a lot of work to maintain the same groups in two different places.

 

Thanks,

 

-David

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Hi David,

 

Please checkout: http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/18060-dimming-scenes-with-echo/?p=165643.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Yeah I had the same question about scenes. Contributed to the referenced thread.

 

Otherwise connected home works well. Are thermostats and door locks deliberately omitted from being supported as connected home devices?

 

Door locks I can see, (for security reasons) though I feel there could be a safe way to implement them. But what's holding thermostats back?

 

 

- Nathan

 

Sent using tapatalk.

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Amazon and Insteon making my wife "happy"....ok, that sounds odd.

 

I just wanted to say a BIG THANKS to everyone on this forum for providing some great info.    I had all the Tivo and Sonos Network configuration just sitting here for sometime, however found it clunky to use variables to turn on various functions ether via remote or wall switch.  NOW, I've loaded up Tivo IR commands and Sonos network SOAP scripts and things are getting really fun.  The portal is well worth the subscription and again, I couldn't have done this without the contributions and hard work of some very fine folks posting their work here on the forum.  THANKS very much.

accd,  are you using the Tivo IR commands on Romio?  I can get the codes to work on the prior version of the Tivo box but not the Romio.  I am using the same Network setup in isy for both Tivo units, except using the specific IP address for each Tivo.  Thanks

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accd,  are you using the Tivo IR commands on Romio?  I can get the codes to work on the prior version of the Tivo box but not the Romio.  I am using the same Network setup in isy for both Tivo units, except using the specific IP address for each Tivo.  Thanks

Why would you use IR when you can go direct via network resource?

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