Differentiating between Echos

[mapeter]

Rather than continue to hijack this thread, I figured I would start a new one.  As was mentioned by a few people (me included), it would be beneficial if the ISY (or portal) knew which Echo initiated the request.  Remote Controls and Touchscreens can be localized to room or section of a house.  If this is not currently possible, it would be cool if it could be incorporated into a future release.  I only have an Echo in my master bedroom, but would like to add another one in the family room.  Both have ceiling lights, lamps, TV, radio and ceiling fan.  Currently, I prefix everything with the phrase "master", which is awkward, but it works.  That is until I start trying to change channels.

 

I can say "Alexa, turn on the Master TV" and it turns on.  Then I want to change the channel, so I say "Alexa, turn on channel eleven on the master TV".  She gets confused.  If I simplify the spoken phrase to "Alexa, turn on channel eleven", then all is fine -- until I have two Echos.  I guess I could make the spoken phrase "Alexa, turn on master channel eleven", but that gets back to being awkward.  (And a very low WAF.)

 

If someone has figured this out, it would be great to hear how you did it.

 

--Andy

 

[stusviews]

It is a dilemma. I don't want to yell to the living room to control the bedroom lights-even if I could. And the one microphone I have won't reach that far. We do have three Echos, I gave each a different name, but each device still needs a unique name and any Echo can and will execute the command.

 

Although it took awhile, the WAF became a rousing HA yes--until Alexa. but, we're still at the beginning of voiceomation.

[madcodger]

A very big thumbs up for this idea. Four echoes in our home, and I could see adding up to one or two more. I'm having a devil of a time working on things like Sonos control because I can't pair an Echo with a room or section of the house. Also, I realize this MAY be a problem for Amazon to best address, but let's not make that assumption too soon, or automatically, please.

[cyberk]

Out of curiosity, what are you using to control the TV with the echo?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mapeter]

Out of curiosity, what are you using to control the TV with the echo?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I am using Network Resources to have a Global Cache IP2IR send the necessary IR to turn the TV on and off, as well as turn on the DirecTV receiver.  Since DirecTV devices can be controlled via IP, I am have Network Resources set up to change the channel via HTTP requests (GET /tv/tune?major=11).  I could have also had the IP2IR send the appropriate IR commands.

 

Every channel requires its own Network Resource, and Program to trigger the Network Resource.  In the ISY Portal, each program is assigned its own Spoken Phrase.  Quite a bit of set up, but it works rather well and with no perceived latency.

[BamBamF16]

The simple control skill is pretty slick. You can ask SC to set the room to "family room" then all commands after that apply to the set room. Not too bad. I only have 1 echo but that might be an option. Plus you get the benefit of the simple control iPhone remotes which are pretty good IMHO.

[ahwman]

There is a relatively simple solution to this dilemma which I have been employing for several months successfully. I currently have two Echo's, one in my master bedroom and one in my kitchen. I use different trigger keywords to activate each to avoid crosstalk/ confusion. By using occupancy sensors in each room, a variable - "Occupancy" is set to either "0" or "1" based on motion triggers. When issuing a connected home command, the appropriate ISY program is launched using an if/then to determine which room is occupied and then launches the appropriate action for the currently occupied room. This allows me to issue commands without any prefixes and works beautifully.

 

Example: "Alexa, turn on the television" will turn on the TV in which ever room is currently occupied.", "Alexa, turn on the ceiling fan light light" will do the same even though I have several ceiling fans throughout the house. "Alexa, turn on the History channel" will tune that channel on my TiVo depending on which room I'm in and so on and so forth...

 

Since I live alone, this works perfectly since I can't occupy two rooms simultaneously, however this could be a challenge in busy households as it could confuse the ISY in terms of determing room occupancy in which case some tweaking may be in order...

 

Chuck

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello everyone,

 

Thanks so very much for all the feedback. ISY needs to have an Echo ID (currently tied to an account) for each Echo and this is not in Amazon APIs. This said, however, we did suggest this feature to Amazon and they were very receptive. So, hopefully they can implement it.

 

All this said, there might be another "untested" solution which requires two accounts:

1. Get a new Amazon Account and tie your 2nd Echo to the new Amazon account

2. In ISY Portal:

a. Create a Subaccount under your account

b. Create a different user under your new Subaccount

c. Add your ISY to the new Subaccount

d. Go to Admin Console | Portals | Approve the access from the Subaccount

e. Login to ISY Portal using the subaccount credentials

f. Follow the same procedures for linking ISY Portal to Echo but this time use the Second Amazon account (#1)

 

Please do let me know whether or not this works.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[dywicked]

Hello everyone,

 

Thanks so very much for all the feedback. ISY needs to have an Echo ID (currently tied to an account) for each Echo and this is not in Amazon APIs. This said, however, we did suggest this feature to Amazon and they were very receptive. So, hopefully they can implement it.

 

All this said, there might be another "untested" solution which requires two accounts:

1. Get a new Amazon Account and tie your 2nd Echo to the new Amazon account

2. In ISY Portal:

a. Create a Subaccount under your account

b. Create a different user under your new Subaccount

c. Add your ISY to the new Subaccount

d. Go to Admin Console | Portals | Approve the access from the Subaccount

e. Login to ISY Portal using the subaccount credentials

f. Follow the same procedures for linking ISY Portal to Echo but this time use the Second Amazon account (#1)

 

Please do let me know whether or not this works.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Hi Michel,

 

I finally got around to trying this out from earlier in a different thread, and I think one more step is required. It seems that on the backend, portal keeps track of the mappings of devices on the ISY to Spoken names based on solely on the ISY, vs. account/ISY. So, even under the second account, mappings all appear the same, if you log in with one account and make a change, logout and in with the second, the change is reflected.

 

However, I'm 99.99% sure that it's actually slightly simpler. This is already complete in terms of steps, my buddy just needs to help me confirm by using is echo to control my media room lights when he says "Alexa, turn off the lights." Whereas when I say the same thing, it should turn off my living room lights - I don't have a second echo, but based on the outcome I may soon .

 

So, basically, instead of creating a separate account, approving it on the ISY etc. just create another user under the same account. Then the rest is the same: create another Amazon account with the other echo; enable ISY coho, skill, etc. and the last piece is:

 

In the Alexa app for each echo/Amazon account I question, created a new group with the appropriate device(s) from portal and gave it a generic name. So for me, "lights" group in the alexa app is associated with a different device depending on which account I am logged in as.

 

As stated, this is all set up already, just need to test it shortly.

 

Best,

 

-David

[dywicked]

Hi Michel,

 

I finally got around to trying this out from earlier in a different thread, and I think one more step is required. It seems that on the backend, portal keeps track of the mappings of devices on the ISY to Spoken names based on solely on the ISY, vs. account/ISY. So, even under the second account, mappings all appear the same, if you log in with one account and make a change, logout and in with the second, the change is reflected.

 

However, I'm 99.99% sure that it's actually slightly simpler. This is already complete in terms of steps, my buddy just needs to help me confirm by using is echo to control my media room lights when he says "Alexa, turn off the lights." Whereas when I say the same thing, it should turn off my living room lights - I don't have a second echo, but based on the outcome I may soon .

 

So, basically, instead of creating a separate account, approving it on the ISY etc. just create another user under the same account. Then the rest is the same: create another Amazon account with the other echo; enable ISY coho, skill, etc. and the last piece is:

 

In the Alexa app for each echo/Amazon account I question, created a new group with the appropriate device(s) from portal and gave it a generic name. So for me, "lights" group in the alexa app is associated with a different device depending on which account I am logged in as.

 

As stated, this is all set up already, just need to test it shortly.

 

Best,

 

-David

Confirmed 100%. creation of a separate user and doing all the usual linkages with a second Amazon account and then using their Group feature for Generic names that are unique to the scope of that Amazon account / echo works. Looks like I'm buying another echo !

 

-David

[madcodger]

Hi all. These are very nice workarounds, and appreciate you sharing them. However, they are still workarounds rather than ultimate solutions, which I hope Amazon implements. The ultimate setup is to have full access to Alexa - for each household member - from anywhere in the home, for any purpose (Connected Home devices, to do list, etc). This is very close, I suspect, if they want to sell multiple Echoes per home.

Edited February 17, 2016 by madcodger

[stusviews]

The Echo already doss what you describe. The difficulty is restricting access depending on where in the home you are. Although it's nice to turn on the living room light from the bedroom, I'd rather that, "Alexa, turn on the light," be restricted to the room I'm in (e.g., the room where that specific Echo is). If I want to turn on the living room light from the bedroom, then I should need to specify "living room," light.

 

But, if I'm in the living room (where the living room Echo is located), "turn on the light," should work only for the living room light and not the bedroom light. That's currently not possible.

 

Edit: It can be done with a second ISY plus a second portal account. Or a third. Or a fourth ...

Edited February 17, 2016 by stusviews

[dywicked]

The Echo already doss what you describe. The difficulty is restricting access depending on where in the home you are. Although it's nice to turn on the living room light from the bedroom, I'd rather that, "Alexa, turn on the light," be restricted to the room I'm in (e.g., the room where that specific Echo is). If I want to turn on the living room light from the bedroom, then I should need to specify "living room," light.

 

But, if I'm in the living room (where the living room Echo is located), "turn on the light," should work only for the living room light and not the bedroom light. That's currently not possible.

 

Edit: It can be done with a second ISY plus a second portal account. Or a third. Or a fourth ...

Hey - no need for additional ISYs. For each additional "zone" for lack of a better word, all you need is an additional portal user, an Amazon account associated with the echo for that zone and a few mins to spare.

 

So I agree it's not ideal, and I sincerely hope Amazon implements this officially. However, if you don't mind spending 5 mins per zone, you've got the described result at no additional cost. Now I just wish these things were cheaper

 

Best,

 

-David

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi David,

 

Thanks so very much for the feedback and I had completely forgotten the mapping (we needed to do this to improve performance).

 

Amazon was very receptive with respect to location. Furthermore, not really wanting to buy Sonos, I hope they come up with multi zone (or grouped) audio and video (Fire TV) distribution as well!

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[ScottAvery]

I wonder if the Prime Family accounts are fully functional and could be set up this way.  That might get you coverage for 6 Echos that still have access to media.

 

Edit:  Prime Households? Whatever the name is.

Edited February 17, 2016 by ScottAvery

[ScottAvery]

No, looks like Households is useless in this regard.  Sorry.

[dywicked]

Hi David,

 

Thanks so very much for the feedback and I had completely forgotten the mapping (we needed to do this to improve performance).

 

Amazon was very receptive with respect to location. Furthermore, not really wanting to buy Sonos, I hope they come up with multi zone (or grouped) audio and video (Fire TV) distribution as well!

 

With kind regards,

Michel

That's great to hear that Amazon was so open - it's funny you bring up Sonos in this context. The audio from my Sonos stuff blows away the echo, but in a few rooms, like my bedroom it would be overkill since I rarely listen to music there. So for me, not buying more Sonos is how I'll end up funding additional echos

 

-David

No, looks like Households is useless in this regard. Sorry.

I was hopeful of the same - you can use the feature to get access to your Amazon content, but none of your third party connections carry over.

 

Best,

 

-David

[MWareman]

Same with me - I have 3 Sonos zones where I listen to music or watch TV the most. Other locations is the house have nothing currently.

 

I either want to buy more Sonos - or wait for Echos to support audio playback.

 

It helps that I get a significant (personal use only) discount from Sonos thru my work though...

[ScottAvery]

I was hopeful of the same - you can use the feature to get access to your Amazon content, but none of your third party connections carry over.

 

Best,

 

-David

It doesn't let you share music, only books and streaming video.

[sloop]

amazon does not send a unique id of the ehco to the ud portal?  just the amazon account?

 

with a unique device id, seems like we (meaning michel *sigh*) could handle this on the ud portal side (with some additional setup for the users)

 

might be an involved change for amazon and the products that interface to amazon to correct that

[mapeter]

Any chance that the new v2 Connected Home API provides an Echo ID?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi mapeter,

 

Unfortunately not!

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[Goose66]

I think we should be making as many suggestions in this regard to Amazon as possible. They have been responsive to other suggestions that I and others have made, especially early on. In regard to the multiple Echo/Dot issue, not only providing a device ID in the request would be useful, but having multiple devices communicate to avoid two different devices processing the same command would also be helpful. They could do a quick broadcast when the wakeup word was recognized indicating the relative strength of the received voice signal, and only the one with the best signal strength would send the remainder of the voice utterance to the Alexa service for processing, while the others would go back to sleep. If Alexa is going to be the heart of a Home-based AI controller through these devices, it will need this functionality.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi kingwr,

 

I couldn't agree with you more. Alexa must be location sensitive.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[stusviews]

I couldn't agree with you more. Alexa must be location sensitive.

 

All my Echo devices are location sensitive. All it requires is multiple accounts, currently limited to five and different wake words of which there are only three.