Alexa Skill vs Hue Emulation

[tex4ever (Philipp)]

Hi guys, I read a lot of topics here in this forum about implementing Alexa skills and enabling the Hue Emulation. But one question I could not figure out: What is the advantage to use an Alexa skill like the formal approach opehab-alexa than using the Hue Emulation? Enabling Hue Emulation is very easy and it supports: “Switch XY on/off”. Why using a Alexa skill instead?

Thanks
Philipp

[Marty56 (Martin)]

Good question.
I could think of 2 reasons

1. the hue emulation is based on philips hue cloud support.
2. it is thereby restricted on its capability with respect of what hue can do. Independence would offer us to expand its capabilities in the future

[NCO (E. Gerland)]

I asked myself the same question.
If you just want to switch ON / OFF I would prefer the emulation (which I use right now as well).

One of the reasons why i don’ use the Alexa Skill yet is, that this is a cloud based stuff and I use just everything exclusively locally due to security / paranoia reasons.

By the way:

@Marty56

the hue emulation is based on philips hue cloud support.

The hue emulation runs locally (no cloud involved).

[Celaeno1 (Alex)]

@NCO

With “Official Alexa Smarthome Skill” via myopenhab cloud connector, you have many more options, not only “Switch ON/OFF”.

See here:

[SOLVED] Complete list of ALL supported english/german voice commands of "Official Alexa Smart Home Skill for OH2"?

Here is a summary of all voice commands: Link Discovery Messages DiscoverAppliancesRequest [supported in OH2] Utterances: “Alexa, discover my smart home devices” german: “Alexa, finde meine smarten Geräte” DiscoverAppliancesResponse Alexa Response: N/A Door Lock Control and Query Messages GetLockStateRequest Utterances: “Alexa, is lock name locked/unlocked?” GetLockStateResponse Alexa Reponse: “The front door is locked” SetLockStateRequest Utterances: “Alexa, lock the lock name” S…

Important: supported commands, see there “[supported in OH2]”

[NCO (E. Gerland)]

Hi @Celaeno1,

you are right - I guess my response was a little unclear.
I meant that both do ON / OFF, but if it is about ON / OFF only, I would go for the hue emulation.
If it’s about more than ON / OFF, the hue emulation is too limited (and therefore the Skill the better choice)

Thanks for the link - I was actually looking for this kind of summary of availyble options for the Alexa Skill for OH

[memphiz (Oliver)]

Hi,
I personally prefer the Alexa Skill. In my opinion the hueemulation has one advantage. It runs locally, and because auf that its more stable. Never heard “… is not reacting” when using the emulation. This is sometimes the case when using the skill. But you have the possibility to insatll your own cloud instance.

Best,
Olli