Anyone using the Alexa Voice Monkey skill API with ISY?

[leecast]

Hello!

I started playing with the Voice Monkey skill recently that allows sending specific spoken announcements to Amazon Echo devices. I have it working currently using IFTTT Webhooks with Voice Monkey and using ISY Network Resources to send strings to it. That actually works pretty well and I am able to use a single "Monkey" Alexa routine to receive this and send the text I want as a variable. Use multiple Network Resources entries with this, each being mostly the same but having different text strings.

What I am not yet able to get working is sending from ISY Network Resources directly to the Voice Monkey API. I have tried using https with POST, GET, and PUT. I have used port 443. I have tried with and without Encode URL. I have the Timeout bumped up to 2,500. I have used C Escaped, URL Encoded, and Raw Text. I have tried with and without Use SNI. The errors vary based on configuration settings, but is is mostly "Request Failed" followed by "N/A." I reached out to their support and we continue to try things, but I wondered if anyone else might have gotten this working.

Also, for those who might wish to use it with IFTTT, I have attached a redacted copy of the config that works with Webhooks from ISY Network Resources. The skill itself is pretty easy to set up and you do have to create an Alexa Routine for it in the app. Once it is all set, and IFTTT is in place, you can send whatever strings you want Alexa to speak through variables. In this case, here is what it says if my flood detector goes off. 

Thanks for any insights on getting things working directly from ISY to Voice Monkey API!
Lee

[mapeter]

Instead of "Raw Text", try a mode of "C Escaped".  That is what I had to use to POST requests to Pushover.

[leecast]

7 minutes ago, mapeter said:

Instead of "Raw Text", try a mode of "C Escaped".  That is what I had to use to POST requests to Pushover.

Thanks, as mentioned above, that was tried with Voice Monkey. The picture I included is of a successful connection using IFTTT. 

[mapeter]

Oops... Sorry.  I was reading too fast and not paying total attention  Thanks for sharing as it will be cool to try.

Looks like Amazon is now providing Smarthome Status Announcements.  Hopefully we will see this integrated into the ISY Portal sometime soon.

 

Edited September 24, 2021 by mapeter

[dakall]

I've been fighting with this for about a week now as well and all I ended up doing was changing from https to http and it's is working. Perhaps someone smarter than I am can explain.

 

[leecast]

This is great! I will try it shortly. Thanks very much for sharing! 

I did get it working with IFTTT, but would much rather do this directly and have the possibility to sending an image to display on the echo show screen other than the Monkey. I had asked their support a couple questions and they are very slow to respond. Nice enough person, but I think it is mostly a hobby and nice that that they made this available. The voice quality is quite good. I did also learn that if you want the announcements to go across multiple Echo Show devices, you make an Alexa App routine for each one. I have a bunch of Echo Shows around my house and it is nice to have it on all of them. There is a little delay between them, but it is still pretty cool and it is free! :)

[Bill Morrow]

Any updates on this?

I am currently using a Raspberry Pi for my Voice Announcements, but the delay is very frustrating. I'm also likely going to move on from ISY ASP to SmartThings.

[Goose66]

I looked into a nodeserver for Polyglot, but it really doesn't make any sense at this point. There is no way to use Voice Monkey API to retrieve the "monkeys" setup in the Voice Monkey system. Nor does the ISY->Polyglot architecture allow programs to send text strings to nodeservers. So there is a lot of fundamental pieces missing here that renders a nodeserver pretty useless. Currently Network Resources is probably your best bet until Benoit can get Smarthome Status Announcements working natively.

I have contacted the developer and suggested some things and I will circle back to it if the situation changes.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Goose66

[Michel Kohanim]

@Goose66, there's no such a thing as Native SmartHome Status Announcements. This is from Benoit:

This is basically a proactive notification which allows to say:

Your <instance friendly name> is <state>

Example: Your vacuum bin is full

There's only 5 states possible:

Alexa.States.Low

Alexa.States.Empty

Alexa.States.Full

Alexa.States.Done

Alexa.States.Stuck

 

This is still far from personalized announcements.

 

I saw another interface that is similar, but targeted to cooking states.

They can say:

Your <appliance friendlyName> has preheated.

Your food in the <appliance friendlyName> has reached target temperature.

Your food in the <appliance friendlyName> is ready.

Your <appliance friendlyName> is ready to use.\

With kind regards,
Michel