Wanting to control scene when telling Alexa to play or pause movie

[andrew77]

Probably not the best way to start a post but let me apologize ahead of time if this is convoluted. 

(If this isn't appropriate for this forum and I should go to an Alexa forum please let me know.)

 

I have two apple tv's, one upstairs and one downstairs.

They're controlled by voice commands (Alexa) via Harmony Hub.

When I tell Alexa "Pause Apple tv", or "Pause Apple TV downstairs" or "Pause Apple TV Upstairs" it only pauses the downstairs apple tv if both are on.

If only one or the other is on "Pause Apple TV" works for either.

(Same goes for "Play APPLE TV")

 

What I was hoping for before I discovered this issue is was to be able to say

"Pause Apple TV Downstairs" and have the downstairs apple tv to pause and have the lights brighten slightly.

and "Play Apple TV Downstairs" and have the lights dim to the movie setting scene and the apple tv to unpause.

 

Drew

[lilyoyo1]

You need to go to an Alexa forum

[andrew77]

Hi lilyoyo

Thank you for that. I figured it was a question for an Alxa forum but I wanted to try here first.

Any good Alexa forums you can suggest?

Drew

[oberkc]

lilyoyo is probably correct about Alexa forum.  Having said that, my experience is that alexa can only control a single harmony hub per account.  Do you have a single hub with multiple apple TV devices linked to it, or separate harmony hubs?

Edited February 21, 2020 by oberkc

[andrew77]

Hi oberkc

I only have one harmony hub. I control four devices upstairs and four devices downstairs via the 2.5 mm plugs on the back each going to a connecting block for the IR blasters.

that being said thank you for that bit of knowledge as I was wondering if I wanted to add more devices And if I should buy another harmony hub. I will look around for an Alexa forum. 

[oberkc]

good luck with this.  I have had mixed luck with Alexa recognizing devices.  I suspect that there are reserved names and phrases that can cause ambiguity with alexa.  Additionally, I have come to suspect confusion by alexa when I have devices with similar names or names having common words (living room TV versus Family room TV, for example).  If you discover anything interesting, let me know.

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, oberkc said:

good luck with this.  I have had mixed luck with Alexa recognizing devices.  I suspect that there are reserved names and phrases that can cause ambiguity with alexa.  Additionally, I have come to suspect confusion by alexa when I have devices with similar names or names having common words (living room TV versus Family room TV, for example).  If you discover anything interesting, let me know.

You must enunciate very clearly to use devices with a matching word, at the end.
I have TV lights (Insteon and WiFi lights) and just TV (turn on the A/V receiver and monitor) that get confused often. GH was worse formerly. I don't know about GH anymore.

[oberkc]

2 hours ago, larryllix said:

You must enunciate very clearly to use devices with a matching word, at the end.

yes, which really limits the usefulness of these devices for me and those that live with me.  I am not really interested in having to memorize and pronounce a bunch of exact phrases (turn on TV?  Watch TV?  Tell harmony to turn on TV?  Watch Roku?  Watch family room TV?  ) and even less so are the others in the house.  It is simply easier to push the remote button or to toggle a switch.

Besides, they are cloud based, so I view them as secondary.

[DaveStLou]

I have 4 Harmony hubs and control them using the Harmony Hub Polyglot Node Server. I then set up several AV devices using the ISY Portal to connect the programs to Alexa. So I am able to say "Alexa, turn on Living Room Tablo" (which turns down my living room lights) or "Alexa, turn on Game Room YouTubeTV", etc. So I know Alexa can handle what you're trying to do and much more.

@andrew77 You may not need to change your set up to something like mine to get it to work. You may want to just simplify the name. What happens if you change the name to just "Downstairs TV" and "Upstairs TV"? I found that mine worked better if they were simple and the room or location came before the device name. Play around with different names until you find something that works.

If that doesn't work, it may be the Harmony Alexa Skill just isn't up to the task. I highly recommend the Harmony Hub Polyglot.

Edited February 22, 2020 by DaveStLou
additional thought

[larryllix]

25 minutes ago, oberkc said:

yes, which really limits the usefulness of these devices for me and those that live with me.  I am not really interested in having to memorize and pronounce a bunch of exact phrases (turn on TV?  Watch TV?  Tell harmony to turn on TV?  Watch Roku?  Watch family room TV?  ) and even less so are the others in the house.  It is simply easier to push the remote button or to toggle a switch.

Besides, they are cloud based, so I view them as secondary.

Yes thy definitely have their niche usage. We only do basic things with A/V like turn the TV on and the A?V receiver to that input. There is no cloud service involved for that connection to ISY, only the vocals.

Some of the device names are hard to remember but devices that get used almost every day get easy the same as operating the remote for the TV. Naming your devices is an art and makes a huge difference.

ISY Portal allows multiple device names and I use that feature a lot to alleviate the name memory thing. For example my kitchen counter bar lights can be controlled with "kitchen lights",  "kitchen bar lights", "bar lights", "counter lights", "kitchen counter lights". We always and only use "turn on" and "turn off".

It definitely has a learning curve but my wife does most of it by listening to what I said. Of course there are things she doesn't use like "Turn on deck rotation" which animates my coloured deck lights in a rotational pattern, with whatever colours they happen to be on with at the time.  

[larryllix]

3 minutes ago, DaveStLou said:

I have 4 Harmony hubs and control them using the Harmony Hub Polyglot Node Server. I then set up several AV devices using the ISY Portal to connect the programs to Alexa. So I am able to say "Alexa, turn on Living Room Tablo" (which turns down my living room lights) or "Alexa, turn on Game Room YouTubeTV", etc. So I know Alexa can handle what you're trying to do and much more.

@andrew77 You may not need to change your set up to something like mine to get it to work. You may want to just simplify the name. What happens if you change the name to just "Downstairs TV" and "Upstairs TV"? I found that mine worked better if they were simple and the room or location came before the device name. Play around with different names until you find something that works.

...to add to this....don't use Alexa turn XXXX on/off. Always use "turn on xxxx". It is much more dependable.

[DaveStLou]

2 minutes ago, larryllix said:

...to add to this....don't use Alexa turn XXXX on/off. Always use "turn on xxxx". It is much more dependable.

So true.

[andrew77]

Just a check in.

I've had a few 'reads' on my amazonforum posting with no answers. I know its not been long but when you're used to a forum like this where members 

answer almost immediately you get spoiled.

I'm at a loss as to where to start as far as trying to get this achieved.

Part of my problem is I never programmed Alexa or ISY or anything to respond to me saying pause apple tv or play apple tv. I just said it one day and it did it.

My point to this is I cant go in and change anything to make the wording specific to what I want.

I did make an Alexa routine when I first got the app etc, when I say Turn On Apple TV Downstairs, the lights downstairs go to my pause tv scene as the gear turns on.

Upstairs would be no problem for this either.

My problem remains that pause  tv and play tv seem to control both or 'the other' tv set up.

14 hours ago, larryllix said:

don't use Alexa turn XXXX on/off. Always use "turn on xxxx".

I had discovered this before and agree.

I also agree with DaveStLou in that you have to be exact in your enunciation. And that some words confuse her still.

I have a library and when I programmed the phrase "Turn On Library" she said it didn't support that. When I changed library to Book Room she was fine with that.

(Further to oberkc's idea that some words and phrases are reserved)

 

I'm still plugging away and if I come up with some sort of solution I'll post here.

This has to be possible for the fact that I can tell her to turn the gear on and she can also trigger a scene. 

Drew

[lilyoyo1]

I think the fact that you're using a single hub for 2 setups is the problem. You could try renaming to totally different things to see if that helps

I would also look for a pattern to see what is going on. My suspicion is she is looking at the first or last "scene" that was used and responds accordingly since the beginning structure is the same

[larryllix]

12 minutes ago, andrew77 said:

Just a check in.

I've had a few 'reads' on my amazonforum posting with no answers. I know its not been long but when you're used to a forum like this where members 

answer almost immediately you get spoiled.

I'm at a loss as to where to start as far as trying to get this achieved.

Part of my problem is I never programmed Alexa or ISY or anything to respond to me saying pause apple tv or play apple tv. I just said it one day and it did it.

My point to this is I cant go in and change anything to make the wording specific to what I want.

I did make an Alexa routine when I first got the app etc, when I say Turn On Apple TV Downstairs, the lights downstairs go to my pause tv scene as the gear turns on.

Upstairs would be no problem for this either.

My problem remains that pause  tv and play tv seem to control both or 'the other' tv set up.

I had discovered this before and agree.

I also agree with DaveStLou in that you have to be exact in your enunciation. And that some words confuse her still.

I have a library and when I programmed the phrase "Turn On Library" she said it didn't support that. When I changed library to Book Room she was fine with that.

(Further to oberkc's idea that some words and phrases are reserved)

 

I'm still plugging away and if I come up with some sort of solution I'll post here.

This has to be possible for the fact that I can tell her to turn the gear on and she can also trigger a scene. 

Drew

I have discovered there are not many "reserved" words. I do think there are "special" words though that Alexa focuses on. However I find the phrase order matters.

Instead of "TV downstairs",    try "downstairs TV".  I think the last word parsed is expected to be an objective noun and, although they try other parsing orders, they  cause more confusion.

I use "Library" without problems. However I always use a well known objective noun word. What does your library do when it get's turned on?
Try this. "Turn On library lamp" or "turn ON library fan", or "Turn On library lights"

Be careful, Google started it and now Alexa is very sensitive to plurals. "Lights" make them assume more than one. I get refused if I don't ask for the right device(s). If I ask to "turn off bedroom light" it will deny me access because it sees more than one.

Placement of the mic is important also. Right against a wall, or especially in a corner, makes the ambient noise system fail badly. This is why I have diabled my ecobee4 Alexa. It constantly answered TV noise and even standing two feet in front of it, was deaf and dumb.  

Edited February 22, 2020 by larryllix

[andrew77]

My First Experiment.

I programmed the voice activation for an ISY scene "Play Apple TV" and added it to a routine in the Alexa app.

When I said it the lights of course dimmed appropriately.

But the apple tv didn't pause anymore.

Deleting this routine allowed Apple tv to pause correctly again.

...sigh...

33 minutes ago, larryllix said:

I use "Library" without problems. However I always use a well known objective noun word. What does your library do when it get's turned on?
Try this. "Turn On library lamp" or "turn ON library fan", or "Turn On library lights"

As I was typing this I was thinking about how scenes won't dim or brighten anymore and I may have been asking the 'Library Scene' to dim.

I'll have to revisit this at a later date to see if that is indeed the case.

 

[andrew77]

Still No luck with Library (just checked)

I have no scenes called Library, just one SWL.

When I say Turn On Library it says Library doesn't support that.

Book Room works fine.

Maybe I should pronounce it like Fonzie and called it a Libary?

 

 

[andrew77]

Just a quick thought.

I have the ISY994i. All my theatre gear is triggered by IR signals coming from a Harmony Hub into one of two connecting blocks (they connect all IR blasters, one for upstairs, one for downstairs).

Alexa communicates with the Harmony hub through voice activation.

Would there be a way to connect the ISY with an IR blaster and make a workaround somehow?

I have the gear to stick to the IR on the ISY.

Just trying to work out a solution before I go and tear my setup apart.

 

Drew

[tazman]

You could create a routine in Alexa that when you speak pause or play however you want to phrase it Alexa also controls your ligths. If you have an ISY with the IR input you can also program IR commands to do what ever you want with ISY it will work both ways.