Help!Alexa service and OH2!

Apps & Services 3rd Party
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I come across this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MEip0jI0tY
Can anybody show me how to implement the system exactly like this?
At the moment I’m using IFTTT to connect Alexa to OH2 but I’m so disappointed with the syntax "Alexa trigger…"and the respond “Sending that to if” from Alexa. I want something is just as simple as in the video above - just say “Alexa,turn on/off abc” and the answer “OK” is perfect!

I’ve been searching in this forum and some people advise to use Alexa HA but I got trouble installing my system (My account can not access to the console which is used to create Lambda function like this:

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Also, some other people tell me to use hue emulation from paper UI in case I got trouble with AWS, I installed, configured, and added tag to items in my .item file already. But I need further more instruction after this. Please help me!

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anyone? Please help

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Search the forum for Hue emulation. I think you will find some examples. There have been many postings.

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I think there is also a formal OH2 Alexa Skill in the works and also another one made. I’m hoping to try this soon myself, but not quit ready.

And this one here:

1 Like
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@rlkoshak @ptmuldoon Thanks for your both suggestion .
Now is my idea, I hope you guys can correct me if I’m wrong
After about an hour of reading, I think that both hue emulator and amazon ha bridge need compatible devices and control directly that devices through commands which are said to Alexa device.
Whereas my intention is saying command to OH host (raspberry pi 3 running Alexa) => it will control my items and I will send commands from my rasp to arduino nodes => my device changes correspondingly (Just like IFTTT + Alexa but I need more simple command and reply syntax from raspberry pi 3). This way I can reduce the cost of setting up my system
Anyway to implement the system as my description? Please show me how?

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Hey, i am also new to this, but maybe i can help you.

Thats exactly what you can do with the hue emulation.

you can simply insert [“Switchable”] to your existing commands in the items.

Switch Harmony_skytv 	"Sky Fernseher" 	(Wohnzimmer) 	[ "Switchable" ]  {command}

and now you are able to find this object in alexa by searching for new smart home devices. in this case it will pop up in alexa as “Sky Fernseher” and your are able to say “alexa, turn on sky fernseher”.

you wont need anything else expect the hue emulation and to set it to pairing true

regards

//Edit:
sorry, but as i am a new user i have to wait 6 hours to wirte the next posts ^^

so i hope you will see my answer here:

hmmm, i have no experience with alexa on rpi on my normal alexa (or even siri) i simply start the app, click on smart home and then search for devices.
on siri i just start the homekit app and it updates itself automatically but for siri you need the homekit binding.

both will find every item you definde in your itemes file with like this:

Switch  TestSwitch1     "Kitchen Switch" [ "Switchable" ]
Switch  TestSwitch2     "Bathroom" [ "Lighting" ]
Dimmer  TestDimmer3     "Hallway" [ "Lighting" ]
Number  TestNumber4     "Temperature Set Point" [ "TargetTemperature" ]

so thats the normal way you define items, except the part in the “[]”. thats the point for alexa and siri to know, that these are the items to show in thei apps and to work with.

you can pair every device in your smarthome where a binding exists for.

regards

1 Like
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@Tidle Woah what a good news! I’m very happy to hear that!
So where can I find the list of the items which are successfully paired with OH2?
The part you said:

now you are able to find this object in alexa by searching for new smart home devices. in this case it will pop up in alexa

How can I searching for new smart home devices? Sorry it may be a silly question but I don’t have Amazon Echo, just Alexa install on my rasp, I hope you could show me more elaborately how to search for new device on Alexa

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Try “Alexa discover devices” , this is how Echo works.

1 Like
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Oh thanks for your both help! @Tidle @hmerk
I downloaded the Amazon Alexa app as @Tidle said, I went to Smart Home section, under “Your devices” category, I clicked “Discover devices”, then it told me that I should wait for about at least 20s so that it could discover my devices. Unfortunately, I tried many times but it still shows no progress :frowning:
I spoke : “Alexa, discover devices” and the only message I received was “Dicover incomplete, I can’t find any smarthome device…”. Any idea @hmerk ?
Again, thank you two!

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The last time I tried with Alexa running on a Pi (which admittedly was a while back, 6 months maybe), the version of Alexa that runs on the Pi didn’t appear to support discovering devices. I think it can control them, but you need a “real” Echo in order to do the discovery.

My Fire TV’s were unable to do the discovery either, at least at that time.

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Oh…That’s so sad when the real Echo must be used…
Since it’s pretty…expensive
I hope someone can figure how to control our items without the Echo (and without IFTTT ofcourse)

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The echo dot has all the features of the echo and is only $49 or $39 on sale instead of $179 for the echo.