Trying to have Alexa say value of a variable

[Guy Lavoie]

So close... I'm trying to have Alexa say the value of a variable. The closest I can get is to ask the percentage of the device (if I define it as a device set/lower/raise), which is awkward with you're not looking for percentages, such as a light level, temperature, etc. I tried words like "level", "setting", etc.

Any magic way to get this working more intuitively and better?

Edited August 25, 2024 by Guy Lavoie

[larryllix]

5 hours ago, Guy Lavoie said:

So close... I'm trying to have Alexa say the value of a variable. The closest I can get is to ask the percentage of the device (if I define it as a device set/lower/raise), which is awkward with you're not looking for percentages, such as a light level, temperature, etc. I tried words like "level", "setting", etc.

Any magic way to get this working more intuitively and better?

The only way I could see working is to have ISY break the value down into Low, Medium, High, very High, Extreme, and create a variable for each and a routine to say the phrases for each.

On that same technique multiple phrases and variables could be created for absolute temperature values but break them into larger lumps using the phrases with "greater than" inserted.
eg:
"Your temperature is greater than 72 degrees"
"Your temperature is less than 68 degrees"

It would take a few, of course but some careful thought of what ranges are critical can reduce the quantities a lot.

[Guy Lavoie]

Well, that might be a usable workaround, if there is no other way. I'll just have to think about that. This is for the pool water temperature, which is a rather limited range of temperature values during the summer season when I want to know it. 

Here is the full story: I'm still new to the EISY world (just a few weeks) and I'm enjoying trying everything out. I have Venstar Colortouch thermostats, three of them in fact. One controls my HVAC, another one controls a blower to send heated air into my furnace return when my wood stove is hot enough, and the third one uses an external sensor that I sealed into a tube to measure the pool water temperature. Now Venstar has a nice phone app, online portal (much like UD) and an Alexa skill, and it all works great, but there is an annoying bug... The optional external temperature can be configured in various ways: to display the outside temperature (and use it in some control parameters, such as lock out the heat pump below certain temperatures), as an alternate control source for the thermostat, as an air return temperature reading, etc. The annoying bug is that when you ask Alexa for the current temperature, it always tells you the temperature of the thermostat's internal sensor, even if you configure the thermostat to use the external sensor instead for control, which ignores the internal sensor in that configuration. This is how my pool water temperature one is set up. So the thermostat's screen shows the correct water temperature, but Alexa gives me the useless internal sensor instead. I even reported the bug to Venstar in April, and they acknowledged it. But no fix in sight.

Fast forward to today, where I'm trying out the Venstar plugin. Good news: it extracts both the internal and external temperature sensor readings, and sets them both to distinct variables. Now if I can just get Alexa to say the variable... 

[dbwarner5]

Have been pondering this for quite a while as well. It's interesting that Alexa can read the temperatures of my thermostat via UD API integration and give me the actual temp, the set temp etc, but we cant get a variable value interpreted the same way. 

I have yolink temp monitors that I would like to be able to ask Alexa their values. Either directly or via a variable in Eisy, along with web control plugin temperature values around the house etc. 

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Having that functionality would certainly be a boon. I wonder if it's something that UDI could add into their portal integration. 

[dbwarner5]

(the most important temp is the temperature of my keg in the kegerator!!)

[Geddy]

35 minutes ago, dbwarner5 said:

I have yolink temp monitors that I would like to be able to ask Alexa their values.

Isn't this possible with the Alexa skill for YoLink? I can ask Alexa what the temp is in my freezer and I get the reply. It's from YoLink. Even though I have the Yolink plugin and can see the temp on UD Mobile I don't have it exposed to the UD portal to Alexa so it's only coming through the YoLink skill (I think). Either way...all my YoLink temps can be given via Alexa when asked. She can't do the humidity of those devices though (I've tried/asked). But that's not as important. It's mostly when 

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Yes, some individual skills have it. The Venstar thermostat skill also says the temperature. As UDI users, we'd like a generic variable -> spoken number capability.

[dbwarner5]

7 minutes ago, Geddy said:

Isn't this possible with the Alexa skill for YoLink? I can ask Alexa what the temp is in my freezer and I get the reply. It's from YoLink. Even though I have the Yolink plugin and can see the temp on UD Mobile I don't have it exposed to the UD portal to Alexa so it's only coming through the YoLink skill (I think). Either way...all my YoLink temps can be given via Alexa when asked. She can't do the humidity of those devices though (I've tried/asked). But that's not as important. It's mostly when 

 

Had forgotten about that. I prefer to concentrate as much as I can in the eisy to avoid double names etc.. but yes I have that skill. That solves yolink but not my web controller temps. I get my Tempest weather data that way as well.

But overall variable integration would be enormous.. for example sprinkler times are all in eisy variables. 
 

thanks.

[Geddy]

@Guy Lavoie & @dbwarner5 - hey, I get it and I'm with you on wanting to have them all in one "place", but I also don't want to have to reinvent the wheel (especially for my "simple system") just to get a temperature "on demand". I don't really keep up with it too much...I only have them in there to get alerts when temps might exceed in either direction. Thankfully the YoLink have been much more reliable than the wireless tag types and I haven't had to change the batteries as often. 

I more or less just chimed in on @dbwarner5 reply since I knew I can ask for the temp and get it. 

Perhaps contacting "sales" at UD to see if that's something they could put on the "wish list" down the road would be worth it. Of course give use case and user "ease" of implementation.

 

[larryllix]

9 hours ago, Geddy said:

Isn't this possible with the Alexa skill for YoLink? I can ask Alexa what the temp is in my freezer and I get the reply. It's from YoLink. Even though I have the Yolink plugin and can see the temp on UD Mobile I don't have it exposed to the UD portal to Alexa so it's only coming through the YoLink skill (I think). Either way...all my YoLink temps can be given via Alexa when asked. She can't do the humidity of those devices though (I've tried/asked). But that's not as important. It's mostly when 

 

I use the CAO Wireless tags and Alexa can interrogate and say their temperatures to 0.001C degrees. The Tags require a new CR2032 battery about every 8-10 months but they can transmit through the metal freezer case to the master receiver in the house easily and reliably.

 

[dbwarner5]

14 hours ago, larryllix said:

I use the CAO Wireless tags and Alexa can interrogate and say their temperatures to 0.001C degrees. The Tags require a new CR2032 battery about every 8-10 months but they can transmit through the metal freezer case to the master receiver in the house easily and reliably.

 

I had looked into them, but decided to go with Yolink as I need the range to get the lake temperature back to the house. 

[Geddy]

15 hours ago, larryllix said:

I use the CAO Wireless tags and Alexa can interrogate and say their temperatures to 0.001C degrees. The Tags require a new CR2032 battery about every 8-10 months but they can transmit through the metal freezer case to the master receiver in the house easily and reliably.

@larryllix I tried the CAO Wireless tags, and still have several in place, but the battery life was worse than 8-10 months in some places and that's with very minimal updates. I think my freezer tag needed to be replaced every 3 months...at least recently it seemed that way. There are some quirks with those tags and every now and then the whole system goes haywire.

I've just found the range and reliability of the YoLink worked out better for me. Also, the YoLink sensors have a display. If I am just grabbing something out of the freezer I can glance at the temp. I've had the YoLink in the freezer almost 18 months on the original batteries. Sure, it's 2 x AAA size (35 cents per battery), but to get that life is better than 5-6 (with my experience at 50-60 cents per CR2032 battery) the cost works out better with the YoLink. Just from my own use experience.

Both have good options and fit for most. 

[larryllix]

10 hours ago, dbwarner5 said:

I had looked into them, but decided to go with Yolink as I need the range to get the lake temperature back to the house. 

I found the CAO Tags to have a very long range. I detected the one in my car about half a mile away when my wife was driving home, once. It reconnected and gave me the connected flag.

However, I also found that the angle of the tag was critical as my mailbox at the end of the driveway, about 40 feet from the house, and through layers of brick to the far end of the house had to be turned the correct angle. I used one for my garage door position sensing and found when bolted to a metal surface it didn't have a good range either.

[larryllix]

18 hours ago, Geddy said:

@larryllix I tried the CAO Wireless tags, and still have several in place, but the battery life was worse than 8-10 months in some places and that's with very minimal updates. I think my freezer tag needed to be replaced every 3 months...at least recently it seemed that way. There are some quirks with those tags and every now and then the whole system goes haywire.

I've just found the range and reliability of the YoLink worked out better for me. Also, the YoLink sensors have a display. If I am just grabbing something out of the freezer I can glance at the temp. I've had the YoLink in the freezer almost 18 months on the original batteries. Sure, it's 2 x AAA size (35 cents per battery), but to get that life is better than 5-6 (with my experience at 50-60 cents per CR2032 battery) the cost works out better with the YoLink. Just from my own use experience.

Both have good options and fit for most. 

There is some frequency, signal strength  and bandwidth adjustments that need to be made on the tags, especially at subzero temperatures. I only interrogate my tags every 30 minutes for general temperature and humidity probing. Also, I do not use the NR, I use a custom written kumoapp to push the readings into polISY State variables.

Edited yesterday at 12:15 PM by larryllix