ISY Skill new Open/Close/Set/Raise/Lower syntax

[bmercier]

The ISY skill now allows for more ways to interact with devices.

You can now use Open/Close, Raise/Lower and Set syntax to set devices and variable values.

To enable this feature:

1. On ISY Portal, go to Select Tools | Connectivity | Amazon Echo
2. Edit one of your "spokens"
3. In the Alexa Category, choose one of these new options:
   • Device with Open/Close syntax
   • Device with Set/Lower/Raise syntax
4. Save your "spoken"
5. After changing the Alexa Category, ask "Alexa, discover my devices"

When you use "Device with Open/Close syntax"

In addition to the regular turn on/turn off, you will now be able to say:

• Alexa, open <device>
• Alexa, close <device>
• Alexa, is <device> open?

When you use "Device with Set/Lower/Raise syntax"

In addition to the regular turn on/turn off, you will now be able to say:

• Alexa, open <device> 
• Alexa, close <device> 
• Alexa, set <device> to <close | low | medium | high | maximum | open>
• Alexa, set <device> to <any number from 1 to 100>
• Alexa, raise <device>
• Alexa, raise <device> by <number>
• Alexa, lower <device> 
• Alexa, lower <device>  by <number>
• Alexa, what is <device> set to?

Please note that this Alexa category is available for devices and state variables only. In the case of variables, when setting up your spoken, it is recommended to use a turn off value of 0, and turn on value of 100.

[DaveStLou]

21 hours ago, bmercier said:

In addition to the regular turn on/turn off, you will now be able to say:

• Alexa, set <device> to <close | low | medium | high | maximum | open>

This is a great improvement. It set up my GE Zwave fan switch and it worked it. I ran into an issue, @bmercier, when I set up my Insteon Fanlinc though. I found that asking Alexa to set Living Room Ceiling Fan to "low" or "medium" both set the device to low. I tried forgetting all devices and re-discovered, but same result.

Edited March 25, 2020 by DaveStLou

[bmercier]

1 hour ago, DaveStLou said:

This is a great improvement. It set up my GE Zwave fan switch and it worked it. I ran into an issue, @bmercier, when I set up my Insteon Fanlinc though. I found that asking Alexa to set Living Room Ceiling Fan to "low" or "medium" both set the device to low. I tried forgetting all devices and re-discovered, but same result.

Can you do me a favor?

Please try:

http://<your isy>/rest/nodes/<your fanlinc>/cmd/DON/128

And let me know if this turns it to medium.

At this moment, when setting to medium, the actual value passed is 127.

Thanks,

Benoit

[DaveStLou]

32 minutes ago, bmercier said:

http://<your isy>/rest/nodes/<your fanlinc>/cmd/DON/128

And let me know if this turns it to medium.

Yes, it did turn on to medium with that command. 127 sets it to low.

[bmercier]

52 minutes ago, DaveStLou said:

Yes, it did turn on to medium with that command. 127 sets it to low.

Fix is in production. When using a fanlinc, requesting to set the speed to medium will indeed set it to medium.

Benoit

[bmercier]

In the original post, I was talking about a limitation where lowest value you could use was 1.

Amazon fixed the API, I changed the skill so that 0 is now allowed.

Benoit

[firstone]

@bmercier This is super cool. Thank you very much for adding this feature. One unfortunate issue for me is that raise/lower syntax cannot be used for programs or scenes. So while I can "raise" or "lower"  my left or right or middle blind, I cannot do it for all of them since they're controlled by a program. So I can only "open" or "close" "all blinds". While this is same or better than using alexa routines in the past, it would be cool if this could be solved in some shape or form. 

[bmercier]

6 minutes ago, firstone said:

@bmercier This is super cool. Thank you very much for adding this feature. One unfortunate issue for me is that raise/lower syntax cannot be used for programs or scenes. So while I can "raise" or "lower"  my left or right or middle blind, I cannot do it for all of them since they're controlled by a program. So I can only "open" or "close" "all blinds". While this is same or better than using alexa routines in the past, it would be cool if this could be solved in some shape or form. 

You could use a state variable to control your blinds. The variable will have a value from 0 to 100%.

Then, use a program to do whatever you want based on the state variable, such as:

If {MyStateVar} > 0
Then
    Set {MyBlindA} to {MyStateVar}
    Set {MyBlindB} to {MyStateVar}
    Set {MyBlindC} to {MyStateVar}
Else
    Set {MyBlindA} to 0
    Set {MyBlindB} to 0
    Set {MyBlindC} to 0

Benoit

[firstone]

2 minutes ago, bmercier said:

You could use a state variable to control your blinds. The variable will have a value from 0 to 100%.

Then, use a program to do whatever you want based on the state variable, such as:

If {MyStateVar} > 0
Then
    Set {MyBlindA} to {MyStateVar}
    Set {MyBlindB} to {MyStateVar}
    Set {MyBlindC} to {MyStateVar}
Else
    Set {MyBlindA} to 0
    Set {MyBlindB} to 0
    Set {MyBlindC} to 0

Benoit

Oh, awesome. Will do that.

[firstone]

Something is not working for me correctly.

I've added z-wave Bali blinds as Device\Set-Lower-Raise. They will not respond to Raise/Lower but will respond to Open/Close.

I've also added a program as Device\Open-Close. Alexa said device doesn't support this command when I try to "Open" or "Close". But it does respond to On/Off

[bmercier]

Something is not working for me correctly.
I've added z-wave Bali blinds as Device\Set-Lower-Raise. They will not respond to Raise/Lower but will respond to Open/Close.
I've also added a program as Device\Open-Close. Alexa said device doesn't support this command when I try to "Open" or "Close". But it does respond to On/Off

Try controlling them from the Alexa app to rule out potential pronunciation issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[firstone]

If I go to alexa app, both, program and blinds, only have on/off options. Not raise/lower/open or close. So it's not like those devices don't respond.They just don't respond to right commands.

[bmercier]

Try to discover devices.

When choosing open/close, in addition to the on/off, you should see ‘device state’ with an enable button.

When choosing raise/lower, in addition to the on/off, you should see a ‘device state’ slider allowing you to select from 0 to 100.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[firstone]

Interestingly enough it works now. Maybe took Amazon cloud some time to catch up. From app or speaker. God knows. Thank you. Sorry for false alarm.

[auger66]

On 3/25/2020 at 10:26 PM, bmercier said:

Fix is in production. When using a fanlinc, requesting to set the speed to medium will indeed set it to medium.

Benoit

Many thanks for this new feature.

I changed my Fanlincs to the new option in the Portal and rediscovered. Off, low, medium voice commands work; high does not. If you ask for high, the fan will set medium. Asking Alexa to set the fan to on or maximum does set the fan to high.

I had routines for controlling my curtain programs. I deleted them all and use open/close now. Works great. Since the curtains and blinds are controlled by a program, raise and lower aren't an option.

If I ask if the curtains are closed or open, the response is off or on.

Edited April 2, 2020 by auger66

[bmercier]

17 hours ago, auger66 said:

I changed my Fanlincs to the new option in the Portal and rediscovered. Off, low, medium voice commands work; high does not. If you ask for high, the fan will set medium. Asking Alexa to set the fan to on or maximum does set the fan to high.

The initial goal for the set/raise/lower syntax was to provide a generic way to control devices and not specific to Fanlinc.

So the presets for low / medium / high are: 25, 50 and 80%.

On a fanlinc, anything below 50% is low, 50 to nearly 99% is medium, and 100% is high.

Perhaps I could enhance this by having different presets when a fanlinc is detected. Will talk to Michel.

17 hours ago, auger66 said:

I had routines for controlling my curtain programs. I deleted them all and use open/close now. Works great. Since the curtains and blinds are controlled by a program, raise and lower aren't an option.

If I ask if the curtains are closed or open, the response is off or on.

 

This could help you:

 

[grossmd]

I currently use a insteon I/o dry contact relay to open my garage door. Since the door simply responds to the momentary contact by moving in the opposite direction from its last activation only an “on” command activates the door. I use the sensor of the I/o to determine door status.

With the new option of open/close syntax I can move the door with the open command but not the close, presumably because a close command simply sends an off signal to the relay.

does anyone have a way to use the new open/close syntax for a simple contact door? Thanks

[DaveStLou]

On 4/2/2020 at 4:28 PM, bmercier said:

The initial goal for the set/raise/lower syntax was to provide a generic way to control devices and not specific to Fanlinc.

So the presets for low / medium / high are: 25, 50 and 80%.

On a fanlinc, anything below 50% is low, 50 to nearly 99% is medium, and 100% is high.

Perhaps I could enhance this by having different presets when a fanlinc is detected. Will talk to Michel.

@bmercier Any update on the possibility of having different presets for Fanlincs?

 

[DaveStLou]

Also, as the weather turned warmer in St. Louis, when I asked Alexa to turn on ceiling fans low, medium or high, she told me the fan didn't support that.

When I went into the setting in my.isy.io portal I discovered all four of my ceiling fans had switched to "contacts". I set them up and they were functioning the end of March.

@bmercier, any idea why they would have changed without my intervention?

[thruster999]

On 5/2/2020 at 3:36 PM, DaveStLou said:

@bmercier Any update on the possibility of having different presets for Fanlincs?

 

I'd like to bump this request up too please? I've tried to train my wife and grandkids to use "100%" with fanlinc, but low, medium and "high" for a 3 - speed ceiling fan is more intuitive. Thanks!

[bmercier]

Fan support has been added.

We added a new echo category in order to have a better user experience. Both Insteon Fanlinc are supported (4 settings: off, low, medium, high) and ZWave (5 settings: off, low, medium, high, max). It will also display a Fan icon, instead of a generic icon. That was also required so that raise/lower would bump the speed to the correct values.

 

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, bmercier said:

Fan support has been added.

We added a new echo category in order to have a better user experience. Both Insteon Fanlinc are supported (4 settings: off, low, medium, high) and ZWave (5 settings: off, low, medium, high, max). It will also display a Fan icon, instead of a generic icon. That was also required so that raise/lower would bump the speed to the correct values.

 

Nice! I don't have any fans but it sounds like this would make a good deal for lighting or scenes. Most lighting only requires about three levels anyway! I don't need a percentage and try to explain that to non-math type people. High, medium, low and off are plenty of level graduations. 100%,40%, and 12% seem to work for me.

"Alexa.... turn on kitchen lights to medium"

I hope that can work also or do we use the verb "set"?

[bmercier]

17 hours ago, larryllix said:

Nice! I don't have any fans but it sounds like this would make a good deal for lighting or scenes. Most lighting only requires about three levels anyway! I don't need a percentage and try to explain that to non-math type people. High, medium, low and off are plenty of level graduations. 100%,40%, and 12% seem to work for me.

"Alexa.... turn on kitchen lights to medium"

I hope that can work also or do we use the verb "set"?

For lighting, you are better with Set/Lower/Raise as the verbiage is in the range of 0-100 percent, instead of fan speeds of 0-3 or 0-4 for Fans,

[bmercier]

17 hours ago, larryllix said:

Nice! I don't have any fans but it sounds like this would make a good deal for lighting or scenes. Most lighting only requires about three levels anyway! I don't need a percentage and try to explain that to non-math type people. High, medium, low and off are plenty of level graduations. 100%,40%, and 12% seem to work for me.

"Alexa.... turn on kitchen lights to medium"

I hope that can work also or do we use the verb "set"?

FYI, without changing a thing, you can say:

Alexa, turn on kitchen lights to 50%

[bmercier]

On 5/2/2020 at 5:39 PM, DaveStLou said:

Also, as the weather turned warmer in St. Louis, when I asked Alexa to turn on ceiling fans low, medium or high, she told me the fan didn't support that.

When I went into the setting in my.isy.io portal I discovered all four of my ceiling fans had switched to "contacts". I set them up and they were functioning the end of March.

@bmercier, any idea why they would have changed without my intervention?

Found out a bug today, it was reported by asbril.

When editing a spoken and saving without changing the Alexa cat, the alexa category would be messed up.

It's fixed now.