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MobiLinc (iOS) version 4.10 Voice Notifications and Alexa Smart Home


InsteonNut

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Posted

[uPDATE 3-3-2017] - Amazon has approved the MobiLinc Smart Home Skill! Make sure to see our website for configuration information: http://mobilinc.com/features/echo/


 


Hi Folks,


 


We are VERY excited to announce a couple of new features for MobiLinc and MobiLinc Connect. Custom Voice Notifications and Alexa Smart Home support!


 


Custom Voice Notifications


 


Our iOS 4.10 release this morning adds in the capability to speak your push notifications instead of the default notification ding. We've added support for 45+ voices spanning different languages and accents. For example, announce when a door is opened or when your security system is disarmed*. To convert an existing notification to speech, open MobiLinc and go to Settings->Notification Settings and select your notification. Tap "Edit". Turn on "Speak Message" and optionally "Show Message". Tap "Use Voice" to select the voice you'd like to use. Tap back to save.


 


To demonstrate the new feature check out our quick light-hearted video at the top of our push notification page: http://mobilinc.com/features/push/


VoiceNotificationsSmall.JPG


If you have an Amazon Alexa/Echo in the room, you might want to mute it.  :-) Which leads into the second feature, Alexa Smart Home support!


 


 


Alexa Smart Home Support


 


We are REALLY excited for this new addition and a huge thanks to Michel at UDI for providing us with assistance in getting this skill off the ground. We submitted the MobiLinc Smart Home skill to Amazon on January 23rd, 2017 for certification and we are just waiting to hear back. We expect approval at any point and will update this post once approved. While we're waiting for approval, I wanted to let everyone know about a couple of key features to the upcoming Smart Home skill as well as our live Custom skill for MobiLinc.


 


MobiLinc Custom Skill


  • Devices and Scenes with a "Spoken" name are added to the MobiLinc Custom skill and exposed to the Smart Home skill.
  • By default all programs are included, unless you have a "Voice" folder. Then, only programs under Voice are included in the Custom Skill and Smart Home skill.
  • The MobiLinc Custom skill supports custom voice responses to programs. Put your custom voice response in parenthesis after the program name. For example, if your program is named "Irrigation (Irrigation is running)" and you say "Alexa, tell MobiLinc to run program Irrigation", Alexa will respond with "Irrigation is running". You can put anything you want in parenthesis and Alexa will speak it as a response. Remember to "Alexa, tell MobiLinc to refresh devices" after saving your changes in the Admin Console.
  • The MobiLinc Custom skill supports Special Action programs like "Alexa, tell MobiLinc we're leaving". The following special actions are support along with custom responses:

    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc we're/I'm going to bed."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc we're/I'm going to sleep."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc good morning."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc good night."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc we're/I'm home."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc we're/I'm leaving."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc it's party time."
    "Alexa, tell MobiLinc to stop party time."


 


MobiLinc Smart Home Skill


  • The MobiLinc Smart Home skill supports linking individual Alexa devices to your one MobiLinc Connect account so you can simply walk into a room with Alexa and say "Alexa, turn on the lights" and only those lights in that room will turn on. This is a really powerful feature especially for the non-techies in our lives and we're excited to support this. You only need to assign the Alexa device to a unique Amazon email address in the Alexa app. See our website for the full set of directions. 
  • The MobiLinc Smart Home skill supports all voice commands exposed by the Alexa Smart Home API including controlling lights, scenes, programs, and thermostats. 
  • Telling a program to turn on will run the "Then" path. Telling a program to turn off will run the "Else" path.
  • Note: Alexa has it's own response to the Smart Home commands and cannot be overridden. Only through the MobiLinc Custom skill "Alexa, tell MobiLinc to..." will the custom response be used.

The MobiLinc Smart Home Skill works with the Custom skill. So for those interested in Alexa Smart Home and MobiLinc, please start with connecting your Alexa to MobiLinc Connect with the MobiLinc Custom Skill first. Once our Smart Home skill is approved, you'll be able to link the MobiLinc Smart Home skill to your MobiLinc Connect account and pull in your devices, scenes, programs refreshed through the MobiLinc Custom Skill.


 


For all the fine details including setup steps for the above Alexa features, please see our website: http://mobilinc.com/features/echo/


 


Both the voice notification feature and Alexa integration requires a MobiLinc Connect subscription (http://mobilinc.com/features/mobilincconnect/) and the MobiLinc portal module installed in the ISY.


 


Wes


 


*Apple Watch users: Apple hasn't allowed devs to change the default sound on the Apple Watch. The custom voice/sound can only speak on the iPhone or iPad.


Posted

Just to be clear the Alexa integration requires a Mobilelinc connect account/subscription, correct? Furthermore you can't have both the ISY portal and MobiLinc Connect subscription at the same time. Wanted to post this info so people don't get confused and start asking. Might want to add this info bold to your post.

Posted

Hi Marcin,

 

I've been in contact with an Amazon support rep. They've confirmed they've received our Smart Home skill and certification is in progress but they declined to offer a timeline. 

 

Wes

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

FYI: We heard back from Amazon last night. The good news is the skill has passed certification. The bad news is they needed us to update some documentation and metadata about the MobiLinc Skill before they'll make it public. We've made their requested updates and re-submitted the skill for approval as well as reached out to our support contact at Amazon to accelerate this final approval step. I will post back when we have more information.

 

Wes

Posted

Hi Folks,

 

I'm very excited to announce that Amazon has approved our MobiLinc Smart Home skill! Make sure to read through our setup guide on our website: http://mobilinc.com/features/echo/

 

The important thing to remember when getting started is to first link to the MobiLinc Custom skill to pull in your items. Then you can "Discover devices" via the MobiLinc Smart Home skill.

 

For those with multiple echos, the account linking feature we implemented is great at linking a specific echo to just one room so you can say, "Alexa, turn on the lights" and have just that room's lights respond. See our website for configuration steps.

 

Wes

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