Dear sir,
Firstly thanks for your post.
But do I have to buy Amazon Echo to use Alexa Skills Kit ?
Iâm not sure what you mean? Do you want to build your own echo (that is possible), otherwise Iâm not sure if using the skill kit would be worth while. Unless does it work on other Amazon devices?
I read the instruction and it said I must have amazon echo to use amazon skill kits
thatâs why I asked
Iâm now using raspberry pi 3, Oh2 and alexa via IFTTT as my voice controlling system. But Iâm quite annoyed whenever I want to turn on/off something, I have to say âAlexa trigger turn the light on/offâ which is pretty long. I want to get rid of the âtriggerâ word, just âAlexa, turn the light on/offâ will be very very awesome!
I encountered this post and itâs exactly what Iâm expecting! I hope you guys can help me install it!
@thete Speaking of âbuild your own echoâ, can you suggest me some links which show me how to build my own echo, please? Thatâs would be great!
I interpret âAn Alex-enabled device such as amazon Echoâ as any alexa device, not just the echo.
I.e Echo, Dot or "DIY alex with raspberry. "
Regards, S
thanks for your reply
When Iâm registering, they ask for my credit card number. I donât have american express (neither Mastercard nor Visa - sorry Iâm just a high school student) so I use automatic credit card generator online : http://credit-card-generator.2-ee.com/
Is that OK? because Iâve been waiting from yesterday to now!
Again, thanks for replying!
since a few days, I finally have my Alexa at home! Yay!
So, Iâm about setting her up with OH2 these days. Before I start: is there a due date for a official release of the Alexa skill? I understand, getting my âownâ skill gives me more freedom, but still. 
Google is your friend here, this is the first link for googling âBuild your own echoâ, there are many more: Here
If you use the Hue Emulator (what I have ended up doing, as you run into problems if you try to set up your own skill (i.e. Literals not being supported in the English UK region, and in america soon). This can be found in the misc add-ons area of paper ui, or just add hueemulation to the misc= part of addon.cfg. Donât get it confused with the normal hue binding. Once installed just go to services->io->hue emulation and enable pairing and maybe tell it the main network ip address of the computer openhab is running on. You then donâ;t need to say a trigger word at all. You will probably need to get your echo to rescan your devices (then disable pairing in the hue emulator config).
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Oh again thanks for your support. @thete
Yes indeed I donât live in neither England nor USA so setting my skill might be impossible. 
Just to clarify your statement, Iâve already installed hue emulation in paper UI and finished configuring as the instruction said: https://github.com/openhab/openhab2-addons/tree/master/addons/io/org.openhab.io.hueemulation
Here are some really noob questions, I hope you or anyone knows can answer and help me, please:
- What kind of devices can Hue Emulation discovered?
- So now I need to add tags to my .item file and get the Hue Emulation to discover my items, right?
- After all those steps above, I dont need to use IFTTT service to connect openhab to alexa anymore, right? (I mean if I reach this stage, I just merely need to say a command without any silly trigger words like âAlexa triggerâŠâ but only âAlexa,turn the ⊠on/offâ. Is that right? Any example commands for Alexa to control devices using Hue Emulation + OH2?)
If youâre pleased, maybe we need to take some steps back-up. Could you elaborately show us (for beginners just like me, of course) your method to set up your system include Alexa+Hue Emulation to control openhab items (assumed that weâve already successfully set up our own echo from the link you gave) ?
Iâm really struggling to get this working, mostly because Iâm not sure where the parameters I need are hiding.
On top of this Iâm attempting to get it to work with OH2 (on a Pi) with Node.js hosted on IIS as thatâs currently occupying port 443 (and Iâm a MS guy at heart).
Iâve got node.js running with nodeiis as proved here: https://robpope.co.uk/node/helloworld/hello.js
After some fun and games Iâve installed alexa-ha, alexa-ha-server and request via npm, but Iâm not sure Iâve got the directory structure right.
Whereas most people are pointing their Alexa Skill at https:///alexa-ha/api Iâm not sure this is working for me as my api directory only has server.js inside it.
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated
Iâve now moved on a step. Iâd missed the very important step (being new to node it caught me by surprise) of running this from a command prompt:
node server.js
I can now access the test page by calling http://localhost:8080/alexa/Openhab-Alexa (not /api/Alexa-HA/ as Iâve changed the config file)
Now Iâm seeing that an invalid password is being supplied in the test. Baby stepsâŠ
I feel that Iâm close, but donât want to spam up this thread with my issues so will leave it at this.
I can now access the Alexa Tester page at https:///alexa/alexa/Alexa-HA
In config.js I have:
- I have set the config.password parameter to âabcd123â and the endpoint to https:///alexa/alexa/Alexa-HA?password=abcd123
- Iâve set config.userId to match âuserIdâ in the developer test screen (It starts amzn1.ask.account. not amzn1.echo-sdk-account. as per the example)
- Iâve set config.applicationId to match the skill ID in the developer portal (again it is slightly different to the example)
When I send a request from the developer portal I see the following in the node.js log (Iâm running interactively)
preRequest fired
undefined - 2017-01-25T22:08:30Z - AWS ASK IntentRequest received: EdwRequestId
.514f97b7-279f-4ca3-b371-30b866d5319f / SessionId.5aa8f027-1143-4c3a-8030-d7e32c
be9633
undefined - 2017-01-25T22:08:30Z - ERROR: Invalid password in request: undefined
Why is it saying invalid password? Is there something Iâm missing, or is my endpoint meant to differ from the tester page? Is there any additional logging I can enable or is it something simple Iâm missing?
The error verbage seems odd, but I believe both the userid and the
applicationid should come from the tester page.
When switching to actual echo testing, both values will again change.
I have a feeling that my issue is with request, which Iâve installed via npm and logs to the console if I add a line in request.js.
I added the âgotchaâ log into the following section of alexa-app-serverâs index.js. Any ideas why it could fail on a Windows Server?
self.express.post(endpoint,function(req,res) {
if (config.verify && !req.verified) {
res.status(401).json({ status: 'failure', reason: er });
}
var json = req.body, response_json;
// preRequest may return altered request JSON, or undefined, or a Promise
Promise.resolve( typeof config.preRequest=="function" ? config.preRequest(json,req,res) : json )
.then(function(json_new) {
if (json_new) {
json = json_new;
}
return json;
})
.then(app.request)
.then(function(app_response_json) {
response_json = app_response_json;
return Promise.resolve( typeof config.postRequest=="function" ? config.postRequest(app_response_json,req,res) : app_response_json )
})
.then(function(response_json_new) {
response_json = response_json_new || response_json;
res.json(response_json).send();
})
.catch(function() {
console.log('gotcha');
res.status(500).send("Server Error");
});
});
Iâm a german native speaker. What do I need to do, to communicate in german with my echo? Is it âjustâ to translate the utterances?
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During my researches in the code (index.js, config.js, helper.js), I found some places where translation needs to be done. Iâm no programmer so it seems to heavy for me, not to break the code.
In german echo skills there are LITERALS not supported, which means the LITERALS should be substituted by Custom Slots, isnât it? Regarding to the docs this should be possible.
A further question: in the code there are roller shutter mentioned, but never used for the utterances. This let me realize, that the Action is just ON or OFF at the moment. Do you plan to extend the Actions by at least UP and DOWN.
In german language there are synonyms for ON like ein and an, even UP (auf, rauf, hoch) and DOWN (zu, runter) have synonyms. Is it possible to have a mapping from more synonyms to one single Action?
I mean
auf or raus or hoch means Action UP
ein or an means Action ON
Besides of all my thoughts, thank you so much for your great work and Iâm looking forward to speak with my echos in german (soon?)
If you decide to support a german version as well, I could support you with the regarding texts. Just let me know ⊠unfortunately thatâs all what Iâm able to do.
2 Likes
From what I read here
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/steps-to-create-a-smart-home-skill
and looking at the diagram here
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/overviews/understanding-the-smart-home-skill-api
I think the skill should react on the german utterances from the referecene
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/smart-home-skill-api-reference
At least Iâm quite sure that this translations donât have to be done in the code.
My echo dot is just on itâs way and Iâm curious to see who to get the skill working with german.
Perhaps someone may confirm, if Iâm right, or what exactly has do be done, to get it working with german. I think I should be able to contribute to the code if necessary.
Thanks
Someone posted a few videos on youtube to show the integration of amazon echo in openhab witch german language.
But I donât know how he did it exactly.
I am still waiting for my echo. 
He doesnât use this Echo skill, but the HUE emulation (New Binding: Hue Emulator - Amazon Echo integration). You can see this because he says âschalte ANâ to the rollershutter. This is some kind of workaround, because the HUE emulation doesnât officially support rollershutters (âfahre hochâ, âfahre runterâ).
How he did this exactly is mentioned here (also in germanâŠ):
http://onesmarthome.de/smart-home-openhab2-sprachsteuerung-konfiguration/
Is there any chance to skip the Nginx instance and connect the NodeJS application to myopenhab.org instead which is linked to the local oh instance anyway?