Alexa Smart Home Skill V3 is now live!

You can setup non controllable devices, for the sole purpose of getting its status, with any of the Building Block APIs controllers.

Number PowerTotal "Total [%.1f]" (gCharts) {alexa="RangeController.rangeValue" [friendlyNames="Power Consumption", nonControllable=true], channel="modbus:data:endpoint:inputRegisters1:powtot:number"}

thanks, it works. How to specify unit - watt?

This unit is not supported as of yet on the Alexa side. So you won’t be able to define a unit on this one.

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@digitaldan I have read about using window contacts and motion detection sensors in alexa routines (https://stadt-bremerhaven.de/so-erinnert-euch-alexa-an-geoeffnete-fenster/)

I’m missing this with my items in the Alexa App. Is it a miss-configuration on my side or a missing feature in the Alexa Smart Home Skill? (I’m on openhab 2.5.1).

Unfortunately, as mentioned in the contact and motion sensor documentation, these cannot be used to trigger Alexa routines for the time being. Currently, the only support for these is requesting their state via voice commands.

Hi All,

Is this tagging incorrect? The item is discovered but it finds it as a switch, not a light which is odd.

Dimmer EnsuiteCeilingDim1  "Ensuite [%d %%]"   (Group_HabPanel_Dashboard,gAllDimmers)                                     { mqtt="<[broker:/house/out/EnsuiteCeilingDim1/state:state:default], >[broker:/house/in/EnsuiteCeilingDim1/command:command:*:default]", alexa="PowerController.powerState,BrightnessController.brightness" }

You can either use the Lighting metadata label or define the endpoint as a light by adding the meta parameter category="LIGHT".

Thank you!

Hi All

I decided to update the Alexa skill code. The one I was using previously was very old. I had no issues following the instructions here https://github.com/openhab/openhab-alexa and created the ASK-CLI details and deployed the skill. Its visible in the Alexa companion app and I was able to link it via the CLI. I couldnt see any errors, everything looks OK

I forgot all my devices using the Alexa website and ran a discovery.

No new devices found using the alexa skill, only devices from other enabled skills

Any suggestions? CloudWatch shows no errors

I should note its using Login via Amazon to my private openhab cloud server. None of this has changed and worked without issue on the old skill.

Have you gone over the troubleshooting guide? This is the typical syndrome of a bad item configuration causing the discovery process to silently fail on the Alexa side. Staggering is the key in resolving this one.

If we want to increase log verbosity, add environmental variable LOG_LEVEL = info to your Lambda function configuration.

Hi Jeremy I did yes, but given the items were being discovered by previously working skills I didnt think there could be an issue with syntax, is that not correct?

Thanks for that log info, ive added that as an environmental value and I see this now, authorisation failure

No worries. I assume you know how to resolve this one on your end now?

I dont but I’ll try and find some info online. The credentials in the config.js are correct, what other credentials are there?

Is it located in lambda/smarthome/config.js? Step 2.i of update instructions. The file moved when switching to ASK-CLI deployment.

Yes, the file resides there with the right details, no issues opening the baseURL and authenticating with the details in the file to show all the REST items.

You can increase log level to debug and see the request details made by the skill.

Hi Jeremy

I recreated the Login with Amazon profile and that seems to have done the trick. Thanks for your fast response and help!

hi jeremy

it seems there is some kind of time out issue, never happened on the old skill

I use a private cloud connector, openhab cloud set to notifications & remote, discovery works fine and my nginx is proxy_buffering off

Any thoughts?

thanks