Send commands TO an Echo? REST ?

MstrD · January 3, 2017

Is there a way to send commands to an Echo ? A REST API type thing?

Here is my setup:

I have 2 x Echo Dots (about to add a 3rd).

One of them is hard wired to my whole house audio (basically that's all it does is music). I have the voice remote connected to that.

In my kitchen, I have another Echo Dot.

I'm able to use the Dot to turn on music zones via voice.

I can use the voice remote, to connect to the basement Dot, to play music.

I'd like to automate these steps.

What I'd like to do is be able to tell the kitchen dot "Turn On Some Music" and have it run a program on the ISY. That in turn would use network resources to turn on multiple zones, select the right source, and then tell the basement Dot, to "Play some 80s rock" (or whatever).

Or I'd like to turn on my bedroom zone at 7am, set the correct volume, and source, and then send a command to the basement Dot to play my briefing.

The only backwards way I think I could make it work would be to have a speaker, and some kind of little linux board (RaspPi maybe), that I could send commands to via some kind of TCP command, that would then play an audio file, so that the Basement Dot could "hear" it, and then execute it's commands. Then I would just have to record each "command" I wanted, and execute as necessary. I'm pretty sure this would work, but seems backward. Or instead of recording, I could add text-to-speech on the Pi, and then add the "command" into the network resource command.

I know that for the most part the Echo is driving other devices, but in this case I want to go the other direction. Hopefully at some point, Amazon will have a better way to integrate multiple echos (allowing certain commands to be directed to specific devices, or if you use bluetooth, it still give local responses, but sends audio somewhere else)

Any other workaround?

MstrD · January 3, 2017

And as a follow up, it would be nice to have my basement Echo, also be able to say voice commands for my ISY. So I'd like to be able to send a command to the Dot, that says "Alexa, simon says Good morning. It's a beautiful day". (after turning on the appropriate zones, etc.) It would then just say the Good morning part. I could still make this work with text-to-speech, but would be much easier as a direct command.