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Alexa v3 Skill and Push Notifications


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Posted

Like most, updated to v3 skill for Alexa.  Then I was reading that certain skills have the ability to send notifications to Amazon Echo.  For instance, say the weather changes and AccuWeather could send out an alert from there Skill.  Could the v3 Skill from ISY send say push notifications to my Echo's?  Every couple months I try to re-visit this topic and hoping to find a way that my Echo's can speak when certain events happen.

Event happens - Network resource sent to Portal / v3 Alexa Skill - Then the Echo announces that my gate is open.

I read about some bluetooth ways and using Alexa voice, but I'm hoping to find something.

Posted

Yes please.  Sign me up!  Another user posted about the "Tell Me" and that works great.  Alexa, tell me if a Gate is open....  But I am very interested in your skill.

 

Posted (edited)
On 3/3/2018 at 5:52 PM, randyth said:

Great.  Just message me the email address associated with your Amazon account (the one you used to set up your Echo device) and I will email you an invite link.

-Randy

Love it so far Randy!

2 Questions...

I was hoping it would just announce the notification immediately, instead just puts a yellow ring around echo and then you have to manually ask Alexa... do I have any notifications.  Any known way around this?

Got it working in Python & with cURL on Linux.  Questions 2: Windows cURL kept saying Body lacks required accessCode field.  Not sure how to fix that yet.  Access code copied without the curly brackets.

Edited by memphis2k
Posted
1 minute ago, memphis2k said:

Love it so far Randy!

2 Questions...

I was hoping it would just announce the notification immediately, instead just puts a yellow ring around echo and then you have to manually ask Alexa... do I have any notifications.  Any known way around this?

Got it working in Python & with cURL on Linux.  Questions 2: Windows cURL kept saying Body lacks required accessCode field.  Not sure how to fix that yet.  Access code copied without the curly brackets.

I wish we could just make Alexa emit a notification as well, but Amazon does not officially allow that yet.  As it stands now, notifications require some interaction from the user to hear them.

As for Windows cURL, it might be a format issue.  Is Content-type set to application/json in the header?  Could you share the cURL command you are using here, scrubbing the access code from your example, of course.

 

Posted (edited)
17 hours ago, memphis2k said:

Windows cURL kept saying Body lacks required accessCode field.  Not sure how to fix that yet.

It does appear that curl does not behave the same under Windows as on other platforms (ugh).  It looks like Microsoft recommends you use their Invoke-RestMethod instead.  Using PowerShell, here is the Invoke-RestMethod command you can use instead of curl:

Invoke-RestMethod https://api.notifymyecho.com/v1/NotifyMe -Method POST -Body '{"notification":"Hello World!","accessCode":"ACCESS_CODE"}'
Edited by randyth
Posted

Thanks for the reply.  I figured something like that was that result.  I’m using curl for some UPS battery monitoring on a Windows Server.

Do you think Alexa will ever let us directly send notifications to the Echos without asking for notifications?  Im hoping it’s just a matter of time.

Thanks again for the access on this script.  The saved the notifications will work perfect when no one is home.  I’m a fan of Pushover for notifications on my mobile devices/watches.

  • 6 months later...
Posted
On 9/15/2018 at 11:38 AM, heffneil said:

This tool is great but you still have to request your notifications.  Is there anyway to push the notification without having to ask to have them read?

As you discovered, the way Alexa notifications work is that you hear a chime sound and the Echo's light ring illuminates to let you know you have pending notifications.  (You can read about Amazon's Alexa notification system here.)  I believe Amazon designed notifications this way so you are alerted to them even if you are out of the room when they arrive, much like the light on an answering machine lights up to let you know you have messages pending.

Notify Me uses Amazon's official notification system.  And, of course, it is up to Amazon to change the way their notification system works.  Amazon is always updating and improving Alexa, so it is possible they will add something in the Alexa app's Settings menu that allows you to make notifications speak aloud as soon as they arrive. I don't know if they have plans to do this, but I certainly hope they do.

There are unofficial hacks you can use to make Alexa speak without prompting.  They usually involve pairing a dedicated tablet or phone to your Echo and then running some custom code on it and/or another device that is part of your local network.

-Randy

Posted
50 minutes ago, randyth said:

There are unofficial hacks you can use to make Alexa speak without prompting.  They usually involve pairing a dedicated tablet or phone to your Echo and then running some custom code on it and/or another device that is part of your local network.

 

Any suggestions on where to find these hacks or which ones you think are better than others?

Posted
On 9/17/2018 at 9:37 AM, apnar said:

Any suggestions on where to find these hacks or which ones you think are better than others?

I found these two links with a quick  "alexa push notifications bluetooth" Google search:

I'm sure you can find many more push notification hacks with this or a similar search phrase.  Unfortunately, I haven't bothered to try any push notification hacks so I can't recommend one over the other. 

-Randy

Posted

These are great examples. The first is just not gonna work with "This is a reminder BLANK" and the other seems far too complicated.  I pray each night that Amazon gets smart and allows us to make our Echo's say what we want programatically.  I would have thought it would be done by now - but alas it hasn't.  Such a shame.

  • 3 weeks later...

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