Amazon Echo - Connected Home Feature!

[SLDL1]

Hello everyone,

 

First, I must sincerely thank Amazon for their dedication in being one of the most professional and success oriented companies with whom I have dealt with. It's been quite a refreshing experience.

 

Amazon has enabled the Connected Home feature for ISY on a Beta basis and here are the instructions for enabling it:

1. Login to alexa.amazon.com

2. Click on this link

3. Login to your Amazon account and ISY will show up in your app under Connected Home

4. In the Echo app, go to Settings | Connected Home and then choose Discover Devices. This will bring in all the devices you have created a mapping for in your ISY Portal

 

Please note that since this is beta, only the first 450 will be allowed access.

 

Please provide feedback.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

This is great.  Makes Alexa commands much simpler.   Thanks for the effort and the excellent instructions.  It was easy and seems to work flawlessly.  I was also pleased to see that the 'tell izzy" command still works so devices/scenes can be experimented with without having to "discover" each alteration.

[SLDL1]

Interesting.  I could never get "bar" to work in izzy, but it works fine in connected home.  Is there a different vocabulary in Connected Home?"

[SLDL1]

Moving from Mobilinc connect control of the ISY to UDI portal control (for both Mobilinc and Amazon ECHO control)...

Can someone provide a step by step approach (or YouTube video).  I have NOT used or attempted the skills approach prior to Connected Home release...

 

Thanks,

James

These are the instructions Michael sent me.  They worked fine.

You can use MobiLinc if you follow the instructions below:

Please:

[if !supportLists]1.    [endif]Login to https://my.isy.io , click on My Profile (top right) and make sure My Preferred ISY points to your ISY

[if !supportLists]2.    [endif]Open MobiLinc and go to Settings->Lighting Controller->Host Type and choose ISY

[if !supportLists]3.    [endif]Http URL: make sure it's blank

[if !supportLists]4.      [endif]Https URL: my.isy.io

[if !supportLists]5.      [endif]Https Port: 443

[if !supportLists]6.      [endif]Credentials (Username/Password): the same that you use to login to https://my.isy.io

If you have an Android Phone and still having trouble communicating:

1. Uninstall MobiLinc PRO (Force Stop Services)

2. Reboot your phone

3. Install MobiLinc PRO

4. Follow the same instructions as above

 

Ignore all the endifs and support list bracketed stuff.  I'm OSX/iOS if it makes a difference.

[ScottAvery]

 

The one feature request I have is non-echo related, but rather ISY related.  I would like to be able to send a scene a brightness value such that the various dimmer switches that are respondents in the scene are set to that brightness. I understand that this would only be operational through the RESTful interface, but I could use it in several instances.  I believe if implemented it would also allow the Echo to dynamically set a "Scene Brightness".

I believe this is a limitation of the Insteon protocol.  Any solution built into the ISY would be a kluge that would not work as well as you hope, as individual devices would have to be sent their setting and you could not send them all at the same instant.

 

Can you send a dim level to a group configured in the Alexa App?  I have not tried that yet.

 

I, too, want a solution to this problem as I want to be able to keep my scenes in synch but be able to set levels through echo.  Has anyone else solved this problem?  I imagine it could be solved programmatically through creative tracking of Alexa's inputs.  If we had some *ahem* virtual nodes we could have Alexa make changes to those then set the real devices to match.

[brentlh64]

 Benoit,

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I purchased and configured the new ISY portal.

 

Sorry to ask this in the ECHO thread, but the using the Portal user/PW to configure the Mobilinc only works from outside my home network.

 

The local URL and port use my normal console user/pw.

 

Should I just not use the local option and direct both home and away locations to go through the secure ISY Portal?

 

The settings for m

I have tried to find how to purchase the ISY Portal, but have not been able to find it on the UDI website.  Could someone point me in the right direction.

[Xathros]

I believe it is accessed from the Purchase Modules menu entry on the ISY Admin console.

 

-Xathros

[SLDL1]

I have tried to find how to purchase the ISY Portal, but have not been able to find it on the UDI website.  Could someone point me in the right direction.

I had to use an old Windows machine running Explorer to be able to see the available modules under "Purchace Modules" in "Help" in the Console.  It was an easy purchase from there.  My Mac running Safari wouldn't respond to the request.

[barrygordon]

rhodges,

 

See post #90 in this thread

[GBC]

FINALLY I got the Echo to work! It sure is nice to not have to use a computer or tablet to control my devices. I'm disabled and this is very helpful and increases my quality of life.

 

Thank you everyone at Universal Devices!

[bmercier]

Just be be clear, You can connect to the ISY from Mobilinc using the UDI portal just as you can with MLConnect however, MLConnect offers some additional value added features that you won't get if you switch to using the UDI portal.  I believe the custom push notifications are one of features you would lose along with Today view widgets (though the widgets seem to work fine for me without MLConnect)

 

 

That's good to know, I was not aware of that.

 

Thanks,

 

Benoit.

[bmercier]

Interesting.  I could never get "bar" to work in izzy, but it works fine in connected home.  Is there a different vocabulary in Connected Home?"

 

It works very differently.

 

In the case of connected home, the Amazon engine has knowledge of your devices. When you click "discover devices", this effectively brings your list of devices from the spoken table to their systems. So, it is able to make a very accurate guess of what device you are trying to refer to.

 

In the case of a skill, what was understood is passed to a portal API, and the API tries to make a match with one of your devices in the spoken table. However, in order to help, the skill configuration has a list of sample devices. So, naturally, those devices will be easier to understand as Alaxa first tries to match with one of those, and if it cannot, it uses plain english words from a dictionnary. BUT, there is currently a bug which prevents alexa from going outside the list of samples. The device 'bar' is not on the list of samples, so no matter how well you pronounce it, it is never passed to the API. This bug is currently being investigated by Amazon.

 

Thanks,

 

Benoit.

[bmercier]

I go it all linked up last night and tried a few things when I got home. They all worked great. Then I tried some of same things today and Alexa would say OK, but nothing happened. I would repeat the command, she says OK and nothing.

 

I had the same thing crop up once or twice when I was using the emulator. I'm not sure if it is a connected issue or the ISY itself.

 

A couple of questions.

 

1) How does the run a program work? On = Then, Off = Else of the same program? In the emulator, you were not tied to the same program. Maybe others would find that flexibility useful?

 

2) Is there a guide, other than the video, the details everything that can be done, including the Skill?

 

3) How does it integrate with a FanLinc? Can I say "Alexa, set the fan to medium" or something like that? #2 would help with this question.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: My ISY Firmware is 4.4.1

 

1) On=Then, Off=Else. Note taken for the flexibility of a URL. However, today, you could use an interface program where then does your "On" stuff, and else handles the "Off".

 

2) This is coming.

 

3) Connected-Home can only handle Turn On/Off, and set a brightness to a percentage. All you can do for Fanlinc is use the Turn On/Off in combination with a program for each levels.

 

Benoit.

[bmercier]

Bgrubb1,

 

I believe the ISY connected home works the same way. You assign a spoken name to a program. turn on <spoken name> will run the then clause of the program and turn off <spoken name> the else clause.  I think Benoit stated they were go to try and have run <spokenname>   run the if clause of the program and obviously the appropriate then or else.

 

You are correct about turn on/off running the then/else clauses.

 

However, unfortunately, connected home does not support commands like "run <spokenname>". This is not something we can implement ourselves, it has to come from Amazon, and I'm not aware of any plans in this regard.

 

Thanks,

 

Benoit.

[SLDL1]

It works very differently.

 

In the case of connected home, the Amazon engine has knowledge of your devices. When you click "discover devices", this effectively brings your list of devices from the spoken table to their systems. So, it is able to make a very accurate guess of what device you are trying to refer to.

 

In the case of a skill, what was understood is passed to a portal API, and the API tries to make a match with one of your devices in the spoken table. However, in order to help, the skill configuration has a list of sample devices. So, naturally, those devices will be easier to understand as Alaxa first tries to match with one of those, and if it cannot, it uses plain english words from a dictionnary. BUT, there is currently a bug which prevents alexa from going outside the list of samples. The device 'bar' is not on the list of samples, so no matter how well you pronounce it, it is never passed to the API. This bug is currently being investigated by Amazon.

 

Thanks,

 

Benoit.

Benoit.

Thanks for your clear explanation.  Right now, things are working exactly as I hoped they would.  This is great.

[stusviews]

3) Connected-Home can only handle Turn On/Off, and set a brightness to a percentage. All you can do for Fanlinc is use the Turn On/Off in combination with a program for each levels.

 

Post #75 has a solution.

[switzch]

This is working amazing. Thank you. 

 

One issue - After linking with the ISY my Echo has lost the ability to pick up devices on the Hue Emulator running on Pi.  Not like I need the emulator anymore since this now has the same functionality but seemed odd since others reported the Echo picked up both.

 

Suggestion for the UD team - in the 'Spoken Nodes and Themes' page, a link that opens the Echo Discover Devices page would be smart. I got used to this in the emulator UI that barry made and it makes it obvious that the echo needs updating after you make any changes.

[Tunaman]

The connected home works flawlessly, my only concern is with the amount of exercise I'm going to miss!

 

A question/suggestion. Could you also give network resources a spoken word? I have quite a few I use to change channels on DirecTV. To make them work, I have 'wrapper' programs that don't do anything other than execute the network resource.

[stusviews]

The Echo ISY skill has the ability to run a program. Also, you can give the program a "friendly" name after you add it to Connect Home (Add Program). Turn <program_name> on runs the Then statements and turn <program_name> off runs the Else statements.

[Tunaman]

Stuviews, I'm not sure if your reply was in response to my post or not, but made me realize that I may not have been clear, so thanks and allow me to clarify. I currently have a series of network resources, 1 per channel. I then have a program for each that does nothing more than associate a spoken word with the associated network resource. It works great, in fact my wife keeps showing off this feature whenever guest are over, however the process of adding channels could be much simpler if there was the ability to associate a spoken word directly with a network resource.

[ronbo]

Stuviews, I'm not sure if your reply was in response to my post or not, but made me realize that I may not have been clear, so thanks and allow me to clarify. I currently have a series of network resources, 1 per channel. I then have a program for each that does nothing more than associate a spoken word with the associated network resource. It works great, in fact my wife keeps showing off this feature whenever guest are over, however the process of adding channels could be much simpler if there was the ability to associate a spoken word directly with a network resource.

TunaMan,

 

what are you using to change channels???

 

Ron

[ronbo]

All,

 

The connected home feature is working fabulous.. I wanted to post a few tips i've discovered in my testing, If they already appear in the previous 8 pages I apologize.

 

During my setup, i changes device names a number of time, and along the way I started having major voice recognition problems.  When I looked at the Alexa App, I noticed that Some of the previous names I had used were showing up as offline devices. This was easily corrected by deleting all devices from the Alexa App and redoing discovery.

 

After performing a "Replace module with..." in the ISY, I was not able to control the device from Alexa, I would get the response that "that command is not valid for device Den". I deleted the device in the Alexa App, Rediscovered, and still no luck. I then noticed in the portal, that the device address was not updated in my spoken command. I deleted the spoken command, re added it in the portal, re discovered, and all worked.

 

Ron

[Tunaman]

Rondo -- I'm using Network Resources to implement the DirecTV (set-top HTTP Exported Functionality (SHEF) protocol.  You can download a copy from https://www.satinstalltraining.com/homeautomation/DTV-MD-0359-DIRECTV_SHEF_Command_Set-V1.3.C.pdf

 

It is almost 5 years old, but seems to work great with latest hardware.

 

Essentially, I have a network resource for each channel, and a program for each channel.  All the program does is associate a spoken word with the channel, so to to switch to CNN, "Alexa, turn on CNN".

 

It works great, the only thing I had to change was ESPN.  Apparently, if you say "Alexa, turn on ESPN", it turns on ESPN radio.  It was easy to resolve however, I just changed the spoken word to "ESPN TV", so now "Alexa, turn on ESPN TV" will change channels to ESPN.

 

This actually seems to be more reliable than using my Logitech remote, since with the remote, if you don't aim it correctly, it may not get all of the IR Codes.  But via the echo, it never seems to miss.

 

This has been a huge hit on the home front.

 

I also have a Sharp TV, which also has a network interface, so I have a program call TV (with Spoken word of "TV") which calls network service to turn on the DirecTV (see section 3.2 Remote Keys Functionality), then turns on the TV, and sets up room lighting.  The else path turns everything off.

 

So, "Alexa, turn on TV" will turn on set-top box, turn on the TV, and adjust lighting.

"Alexa, turn off TV" will turn off the TV, then the set-top box, and re-adjust the lighting.

 

And, as mentioned above, programs and Network Resources for each channel.

 

Works great, and now my house has the whole neighborhood curious.

 

[Bruce L]

Thanks for the work on connected home.  I just got my Echo yesterday and it was great to be able to set this up.  The only real problems I had with the setup were that I hadn't enabled the admin panel to for unrestricted access in Safari, so I couldn't buy the module, and then I missed that I had to re-run discovery on the echo after setting up everything in the portal.  But once I figured those out it all got connected.

 

The only problem I have now I think is with word recognition with the echo.  I have two kitchen scenes set up that I gave names for as "Kitchen All" and "Kitchen Dim".  What's odd is that every time I try to use one of these I go through the same process:

 

"Alexa, turn on kitchen dim"

"I found several devices matching that name.  Which one did you mean?"

"kitchen dim"

"ok"

 

It's the same sequence every time.   And looking in history it got it right the first time.

 

I thought I would help by using "kitchen all" and "kitchen dim" rather than "kitchen" and "kitchen dim" but it doesn't seem to have helped.  I actually sent amazon feedback that it wasn't doing what I wanted, but just got a generic reply.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Bruce

[barrygordon]

I think dim and all may be bad choices.  the Echo takes special pains for the word dim in the connected home as in" Alexa, dim the kitchen lights to 50 %".  I suspect special pains may also be taken with all as in "Alexa, Dim All The bedroom lights".  I never use those two words in a spoken phrase.  I use some thing like "Alexa, turn off the kitchen area",  where area is a scene having exactly what I want off.

[btreinders]

Rondo -- I'm using Network Resources to implement the DirecTV (set-top HTTP Exported Functionality (SHEF) protocol.  You can download a copy from https://www.satinstalltraining.com/homeautomation/DTV-MD-0359-DIRECTV_SHEF_Command_Set-V1.3.C.pdf

 

It is almost 5 years old, but seems to work great with latest hardware.

 

Essentially, I have a network resource for each channel, and a program for each channel.  All the program does is associate a spoken word with the channel, so to to switch to CNN, "Alexa, turn on CNN".

 

It works great, the only thing I had to change was ESPN.  Apparently, if you say "Alexa, turn on ESPN", it turns on ESPN radio.  It was easy to resolve however, I just changed the spoken word to "ESPN TV", so now "Alexa, turn on ESPN TV" will change channels to ESPN.

 

This actually seems to be more reliable than using my Logitech remote, since with the remote, if you don't aim it correctly, it may not get all of the IR Codes.  But via the echo, it never seems to miss.

 

This has been a huge hit on the home front.

 

I also have a Sharp TV, which also has a network interface, so I have a program call TV (with Spoken word of "TV") which calls network service to turn on the DirecTV (see section 3.2 Remote Keys Functionality), then turns on the TV, and sets up room lighting.  The else path turns everything off.

 

So, "Alexa, turn on TV" will turn on set-top box, turn on the TV, and adjust lighting.

"Alexa, turn off TV" will turn off the TV, then the set-top box, and re-adjust the lighting.

 

And, as mentioned above, programs and Network Resources for each channel.

 

Works great, and now my house has the whole neighborhood curious.

 

E Es Pee N works too if you don't want to say TV at the end.

 

She also has issues with exit, so I use clear.

 

Channel up and down does not work either, so I had to use page up and down.

 

I was using Ay Bee See but connected home seems to have solved that one.