Amazon Echo - Connected Home Feature!

[Jamison_IO]

 

 

 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.

 

Guys - where can i find info about "SOAP"? I really want to be able to control my Sonos with ISY and/or Echo

[Bob P.]

Guys - where can i find info about "SOAP"?

 

"Alexa, What is SOAP?"    

 

(Sorry, I have no idea what SOAP is.)

[barrygordon]

could start here:

 

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP_(protocol)

 

Also SOAP for the ISY is documented in their SDK docs.  

[ccclapp]

Guys - where can i find info about "SOAP"? I really want to be able to control my Sonos with ISY and/or Echo

Go to the wiki page and look under The section that describes controlling external devices there will be an article and a download of all the codes. Sorry so I am not online to give you a link directly

[Jamison_IO]

Thanks so much. I have been wanting to learn how to code and script, but have always lost focus becasue i didn't have a "project" to work on, well, this hobby is certainly providing that. 

[bmercier]

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.

 

Amazon Connected Home simply does not have the capabilities to do that. All that we could do today is map "Turn on" to increasing temperature or "Turn off" to do the opposite, but that would not be intuitive. 

 

Benoit.

[barrygordon]

In the connected home, didn't they allow for a "Set" command to control a dim-able light as in "Alexa, Set the <friendly name> to 50"  ? I kind of remember this working with the HUE Emulator and using it to set the temperature of a thermostat.  Eventually I found that the best way to run the HVAC was not to touch the settings.

 

I leave them on Auto and let the thermostat do its job. They are Z-Wave thermostats that ISY can control and report full status on.

[doogledb]

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

I downloaded the codes here from the Tivo Wiki and I assumed it was direct network codes since it was written for that application.  But what confused me is that the codes have IR in it....  Example for the number 6 it is:  IRCODE NUM6\r

 

Can you point me to where the proper codes are published?  thanks, Doug

[jerlands]

Guys - where can i find info about "SOAP"? I really want to be able to control my Sonos with ISY and/or Echo

 

This thread and you can import directly jonathanud's resources into ISY from Wiki by saving file then use import in network resources.

 

 

Jon...

[barrygordon]

doogledb

 

The "IRCODE" word is the TiVo command to be used when the TCP string is received. It will then emulate what the IR remote would have caused to happen as an action.  In this case the Tivo would perform the same action as if it received the IR code for the number 6 from its IR Remote. There are only a few (5 IIRC) TCP commands, that the Tivo accepts. It does most of the IP work through emulation of the IR code.

[Scyto]

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

thanks that was the precision i was looking for as an answer to my questions.

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

thanks that was the precision i was looking for as an answer to my questions.

[Scyto]

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.

thanks,

 

So if the device does not appear listed as a row item in the list in the ISY.IO portal NEITHER connected home NOR the skill can access that device.  Right?

[bmercier]

thanks,

 

So if the device does not appear listed as a row item in the list in the ISY.IO portal NEITHER connected home NOR the skill can access that device.  Right?

 

Exactly

 

Benoit.

[Bob P.]

...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.

Or, just say "Alexa, Discover Devices."

[madcodger]

As reported earlier, we are having very high levels of success with Echo, including dimming and brightening of both individual devices and Alexa groups. Scenes, of course, do NOT dim or brighten. I will today work on testing a hypothesis that involves using variables and programs to keep KPL button statuses updated when I use Alexa, and will report back.

 

My question is whether others are also experiencing a problem asking Alexa to dim / brighten to 70%, specifically. I cannot. 69% is fine, and 71% is fine, as is any other level tested. But not 70%, which is ignored. Now the default On level for the lights I am testing IS 70% for the scenes to which they belong. But I cannot set them to 70% specifically (by speaking that value) even if they are at another level (say, 40% or 100%). My hypothesis is that Alexa / ISY may have some little bug that prevents us from setting the device to its default On level for a scene, even when the scene is not being called. May I ask others to help test this, by attempting to specify the % dim/brighten level of a device that belongs to a scene (i.e., specifying that specific scene On level as a %)? May I ask you to also test the value 70% as well? Thank you.

[bmercier]

As reported earlier, we are having very high levels of success with Echo, including dimming and brightening of both individual devices and Alexa groups. Scenes, of course, do NOT dim or brighten. I will today work on testing a hypothesis that involves using variables and programs to keep KPL button statuses updated when I use Alexa, and will report back.

 

My question is whether others are also experiencing a problem asking Alexa to dim / brighten to 70%, specifically. I cannot. 69% is fine, and 71% is fine, as is any other level tested. But not 70%, which is ignored. Now the default On level for the lights I am testing IS 70% for the scenes to which they belong. But I cannot set them to 70% specifically (by speaking that value) even if they are at another level (say, 40% or 100%). My hypothesis is that Alexa / ISY may have some little bug that prevents us from setting the device to its default On level for a scene, even when the scene is not being called. May I ask others to help test this, by attempting to specify the % dim/brighten level of a device that belongs to a scene (i.e., specifying that specific scene On level as a %)? May I ask you to also test the value 70% as well? Thank you.

 

Is this with the skill, or connected home?

Is this with an insteon device, or zwave?

 

My hypothesis was that this was an insteon device. At the rest API level, insteon devices work on a scale from 0-255. Therefore, I though this could be a rounding error. However, I tested both connected home and the skill with a request for 70%, and both showed correctly in the admin console at 70% after the command.

 

You may want to try this rest command on your ISY:

http://<your isy ip>/rest/nodes/<your device address>/cmd/DON/178

 

178 is the value that alexa will use for both connected home and skill, when you want to set an insteon device to 70%. See if this reports to 70% in the admin console.

 

Benoit.

Or, just say "Alexa, Discover Devices."

 

Absolutely. Just trying to be concise.

[stusviews]

As reported earlier, we are having very high levels of success with Echo, including dimming and brightening of both individual devices and Alexa groups. Scenes, of course, do NOT dim or brighten. I will today work on testing a hypothesis that involves using variables and programs to keep KPL button statuses updated when I use Alexa, and will report back.

 

My question is whether others are also experiencing a problem asking Alexa to dim / brighten to 70%, specifically. I cannot. 69% is fine, and 71% is fine, as is any other level tested. But not 70%, which is ignored. Now the default On level for the lights I am testing IS 70% for the scenes to which they belong. But I cannot set them to 70% specifically (by speaking that value) even if they are at another level (say, 40% or 100%). My hypothesis is that Alexa / ISY may have some little bug that prevents us from setting the device to its default On level for a scene, even when the scene is not being called. May I ask others to help test this, by attempting to specify the % dim/brighten level of a device that belongs to a scene (i.e., specifying that specific scene On level as a %)? May I ask you to also test the value 70% as well? Thank you.

 

I just tried with one device, a KPL dimmer. The dimmer has a default of 50%. I randomly started by telling Alexa to set the [spoken_name] to 30. Bingo! The light did not turn on and Alexa went silent. I then tried every 10%age and Alexa responded correctly. And, similar to what madcodger found, 29% and 31% were fine. The only non-response was 30!!!

[barrygordon]

I just tried the following dim commands with an Insteon Switchlinc Dimmer (Office lights is the friendly name) :

 

Alexa dim the office lights to 30

Alexa dim the office lights to 70

Alexa dim the office lights to 50

Alexa dim the office lights to 90

 

All worked properly.  I did not look in the admin console, but rather looked if the light was doing what I would consider reasonable

 

Also I can use the word Set in lieu of Dim and things still worked properly, and I cen finalize the command with percent (%) or not.  All cases work perfectly.  

[stusviews]

barrygordon,

 

madcodger found the problem on one device at 70%, I found it at only 30%. You checked only a few %ages. I checked only one device. But, I did get the same result as madcodger, that is, one percentage point above and below worked. I can hardly wait to test other devices, but I'll have to

[madcodger]

Hi all,

 

Benoit - It is with Connected Home, and an Insteon device (Switchliinc Dimmer) that is part of a scene. The default On level for the device is set to 70%. I k ow less than nothing about REST commands (or any type of programming or scripting) but will try this later in the week when some travel concludes.

 

Stusviews - Thank you for testing, and glad someone else replicated the problem. Now we have to figure out why it happens...

 

Barry - Thank you for testing. Is the dimmer you tested set to have a default On level of less than 100%? My hypothesis was that Alexa / ISY could not respond properly at a preset On level, but Stu's testing nixed that.

 

On to explore more...

[barrygordon]

All of a sudden the Echo responds to all spoken CoHo commands with "Sorry the device <device name> is not responding.  Please check its network connection and power supply".

 

The ISY is working fine I can deal with it from my iPads and other programs that interfaces to it using REST.  Nothing on the LAN has changed. Internet access is fine even to alexa.amazon.com.

 

The ISY configuration entry for the Portal is correct. Alexa shows that the COHO for ISY is enabled. All 99 devices are listed as discovered. I even did a forget all devices and a re-discover but same message comes up.

 

I dropped power on the Echo to cause a reboot and that did not help. I have two Echos, so I don't think it is an Echo  hardware issue as they are both acting the same way. 

 

Any Assistance/suggestions greatly appreciated.

[bmercier]

Do you see it online on portal?

 

Benoit.

[barrygordon]

I do not use he IZZY Skill, ergo I never have reason to go to the portal, so if yo do not mind, refresh my memory,  what is the URL to the Portal?

[bmercier]

I do not use he IZZY Skill, ergo I never have reason to go to the portal, so if yo do not mind, refresh my memory,  what is the URL to the Portal?

 

https://my.isy.io

 

Benoit.

[Jamison_IO]

I thought you had to go to the portal to add the devices so the echo can see them?

 

 

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