Alexa Smart Home Skill V3 is now live!

azzkikrboy · December 27, 2019, 12:45pm

It works without the “Lighting” tag, so you only need the old or the new syntax.

Reg 1)
i don´t get your point The item name is not necessarily the “human understandable” name to control the blind with Alexa

Reg 2)
Yep, shame on me, that was to easy

Reg 3)
I did some more testing. Indeed, the item is visible in the UI and I can troll the blind, BUT the group settings do not longer work (that’s what I noticed yesterday). So if I send a “down” command to the group gEG_RL like

gEG_RL.sendCommand(DOWN)

all blinds in this group move except this one (Esszimmer).
I guess, it’s a compatibility problem with the group definition and the new V3 syntax.

The corresponding goup is actually defined as:

Group:Rollershutter:AND(100,0) gEG_RL "EG Rollos [(%d)]"

Marc_W · December 27, 2019, 1:24pm

You’re right. I actually meant the item label and corrected that in the previous post. Still, you can use the friendly name, but I got the feeling you wanted to adress the item thrugh alexa as “Esszimmer Rolladen”, and not as “Öffnung”, as your firendly name suggested. You can still set the firendlyname property to anything you like, e.g friendlyName="Banane".

I copied your group definition to my setup, added my blinds and adressed it with the command you showed in the openhab ssh console. For me, all blinds moved accordingly.

I suspect you have a problem with the group state. How did you make the correction to point 2 from above? Perhaps try to temporarily define the group as

Group:Rollershutter gEG_RL "EG Rollos [(%d)]"

and see if sending UP/DOWN commands works?

azzkikrboy · December 27, 2019, 1:41pm

And again, shame on me. A little more of RTFM would have helped to figure this out. I just copy-pasted the command from the manual and forgot to change the friendly name.
Now, all is OK
Finaly the item is:

Rollershutter EG_EZ_Rollo   "Esszimmer Rollladen"  (gEG_RL, gEG_RL_athome)  { channel="knx:device:bridge:EG_EZ:EG_EZ_Rollo", alexa="RangeController.rangeValue" [category="INTERIOR_BLIND", friendlyNames="Esszimmer Rollladen", supportedRange="0:100:10", unitOfMeasure="Percent", actionMappings="Close=100,Open=0,Lower=(+10),Raise=(-10)", stateMappings="Closed=100,Open=0:99"] }

And also as suggested. The group issue was related to the group definition. What you suggested works, but if my group definition works on your setup, I have to check further why it’s not working with my OH2.

Anyhow, already a big thank you for your hints!!!

azzkikrboy · December 27, 2019, 1:44pm

update. after restarting the OH2 service, point 3 also seems to be solved

Jaghova · December 29, 2019, 7:26pm

Seems there is something I’m missing about the rollershutter…

This is my configuration, and it works great if I say Rise or Lower actions (in Spanish Subir o Bajar), but when I what to Open 0% or Close 100% (in Spanish Abrir o Cerrar), it says “it is not compatible”.

I thought the new V3 solved this adding: actionMappings=“Close=100,Open=0,Lower=(-10),Raise=(+10) but in my case it doesn’t work.

Am I the only one with this issue?

Rollershutter Persiana_Salon_P7 “Persiana Salon” (Persianas_Salon)
{
knx=“2/5/20, 2/5/21, 2/5/22+2/5/120”,
alexa=“RangeController.rangeValue”
[
category=“INTERIOR_BLIND”,
supportedRange=“0:100:10”,
unitOfMeasure=“Percent”,
actionMappings=“Close=100,Open=0,Lower=(-10),Raise=(+10)”, stateMappings=“Open=0:99,Closed=100”
]
}

Thanks

jeshab · December 29, 2019, 8:05pm

I was able to get a proper response using the below utterances, testing with the Alexa simulator. You should check your voice history to see how your requests were transcribed. I noticed that if salón doesn’t have an accent it will fail. However, using persiana de salon works no matter if the accent is present or not. Also, it seems that Abre and Cierre works better than Abra and Cierra.

“Alexa, abre persiana salón”
“Alexa, cierre persiana salón”
“Alexa, abre persiana de salon”
“Alexa, cierre persiana de salon”

Jaghova · December 30, 2019, 10:51am

Hi Jeshab,

I tried with and without the accent in Salon and with Abre/a y Cierre/a still without success, And the transcriptons are correct.

Everything works except the OPEN CLOSE actions. The only way to do it is order to put the blind to 0% or 100%.

Is this normal? Is me doing something wrong? Related to the lenguage (Spanish)? The skill?

Marc_W · December 30, 2019, 3:16pm

Hi Igor,

can you try to order the blinds into a 50% state, then try your Abre y Cierre (Open, Close) commands again?

I noticed, that Raise corresponds to adding 10 to the state, and raising multiple times usually corresponds to an eventual Open state. However, if your current state is Open, which you set to be zero, then your blind motor won’t react to your Raise command, because it simply can’t, and if your current position is Closed, which corresponds to 100 in your setup, then openhab will not alow the Raise command as that would set the state to above 100.

Consequently, I suggest you try to change your item definition into

actionMappings=“Close=0,Open=100,Lower=(-10),Raise=(+10)”, 
stateMappings=“Open=1:100,Closed=0”

jeshab · December 30, 2019, 4:13pm

Could you be more specific with the steps you took, including the exact utterances you have in your voice history and the response you got? Also, just to be clear, my recommendations above were related to how to request the command. You shouldn’t need to change your item definition. Have you tried abre persiana de salon?

The only problem here is that you are experiencing a limitation from the Alexa side. This seems to be common, with mostly non-English languages, when using terms like open/close and on/off which overlap with other Alexa skill capabilities. There is nothing wrong with either the skill or the item definition you configured. Unfortunately, since Amazon doesn’t provide an official utterance reference guide, the only way to try to find a solution for these kind of issues is to change the way the voice requests are asked, through trial and error.

Marc_W · December 30, 2019, 4:20pm

Hi Jeremy,

to make this perfectly clear: Igor’s syntax is completely okay, but I suspect the meaning of the actionMappings is incorrect.

Calling Raise about ten times should be equal to calling Open, and not be equal to calling Close. It might be unrelated to the actual problem, but Igor can only be sure of that if he actually tests all commands starting from some in-between position.

Jaghova · December 30, 2019, 4:51pm

The reason for my Items with this configuration is that the movement is inverted. If I use your configuration it works the other way around. Just in case I tried your suggestion:
Send blinds to 50%, OK, then rise or lower them, OK, then try to open or close them, FAIL.

-Voice command: Alexa, persiana salon 50%. Voice history OK. Response OK, it goes to 50%
-Voice command: Alexa, sube persiana salon. Voice history OK. Response OK, it rises 10%
-Voice command: Alexa, cierra persiana salon. Voice history OK. Response: persiana salon no es compatible con esto (salon’s blind is not compatible with this).
-Voice command: Alexa, cierra persiana de salon. Voice history OK. Response: persiana salon no es compatible con esto (salon’s blind is not compatible this).

jeshab · December 30, 2019, 5:02pm

Thanks. It appears that Alexa doesn’t transcribe the accent. As I mentioned before, it seems that Abre and Cierre work better than Abra and Cierra.

Could you provide the same information after trying these commands: abre persiana salon, abre persiana de salon, cierre persiana salon and cierre persiana de salon?

Jaghova · December 30, 2019, 7:37pm

Is not because of the accent:
1º I changed on items Salon with and without accent
2º It works with other comands (lower, rise, %) regardless the accent
3º It happens with other blinds as well like comedor that has not accent

jeshab · December 30, 2019, 7:53pm

Understood. Let’s not focus on the accent part. It was just a comment based on my testing.

Did you try these utterances on your “Persiana Salon” item? That’s the important part.

seppdog · December 31, 2019, 11:43am

Hi!
Is it possible to use the normal existing groups for lights from openhab with alexa?
For example:

Group KitchenLights "Kitchen"
Switch KitchenTable "Table" (KitchenLights)
Switch KitchenOven "Oven" (KitchenLights)

And with “Kitchen” I want to switch both Lights with one voice command. .
I don’t want to use the online Alexa Groups…

thx

Marc_W · December 31, 2019, 1:44pm

Hi seppdog, how about

Group:Switch:AND(ON, OFF) KitchenLights "Kitchen"
{
    alexa="PowerController.powerState"
}

Simple openhab group with an Alexa Smart Home Skill V3 property attached, which treats the openhab group as a single endpoint. You need to discover devices once, no need to work under the group settings in alexa.amazon.com.

mjcumming · January 1, 2020, 3:36pm

Really enjoying the new Skill!

Is there a way to use voice profiles?

jeshab · January 1, 2020, 4:07pm

Unfortunately that feature is not available to Alexa smart home skills as of yet.

seppdog · January 1, 2020, 4:51pm

Works! Thanks!

mancer · January 2, 2020, 1:47pm

I’m using the Xiaomi Door/Window sensors. Is there any way to differentiate between a door and a window sensor? Or would you simply give the items the names “door” and “window”?
e.g. you can have a door to a balcony and a window in the same room and would either ask “is the door open?” or “is the window open?”.

Edit: Seems to work whenever the name includes either “door” or “window”…