Official Alexa Smart Home Skill for openHAB 2

Ok, you mean the little °, you’re right, i forgot to add that, but here’s something strange, I added the rule and item changes for my 6 temp/humid sensors, and restarted OH, and it now works perfect’!, even without adding the °.
And she now answers as before: "The Office Temperatue is 24 point 9 Degrees"
So for now I say: If it aint broke, don’t fix it…
Thanks

It works perfect! with the typos, so there not really typos! :smile:

:smiley: Gald you got it working.
Yes they don’t affect alexa but they affect the way it is displayed in paper ui, simple ui or habpanel!

Can someone please explain in detail(step-by-step) how to add tags to items that have been discovered by paperUI?

I understand I need to use the REST api to add the tags, but I don’t want to screw it up. Also, are there any alternative ways to add tags?

Is item tagging in PaperUI being worked on?

Quick questions related to Rollershutters:

I’ve got this in .items file:
Rollershutter BlindNorth “North Blind [%d %%]” [ “Lighting” ] {channel=“somfytahoma:exteriorvenetianblind:a3ab5cd5:f4e907c6-b809-416b-9b92-ead71e07764f:control”}
Dimmer BlindNorthPos “North Blind position [%.1f]” [ “Lighting” ] {channel=“somfytahoma:exteriorvenetianblind:a3ab5cd5:f4e907c6-b809-416b-9b92-ead71e07764f:position”}

setting the position via Alexa works like a charm, however the simple turn on/turn off control (“turn on North Blind”) ends up with “North Blind doesn’t support this”.
Any hint, what am I doing wrong?

Thx

b72

My tip is to delete the database and readd your items with config files.
I was in the same situation. Everything was set up via paperui and I needed to add tags. The whole process is uncomfortable, a bit confusing as you have long lists and gets really annoying when you want to make changes. So trust me, use config files instead.

Anyway here is how you could do it:

Avoiding the terminal

  • Get Rest API Documentation (Paper UI-> Addons->Misc->Rest API Documentation->Install)
  • Get Name of item (the name not the label) via paper ui (or even via rest api)
  • Go to Resp API Doc: http://<ip>:8080/doc/index.html
  • Go to Items, “PUT /items/{itemname}/tags/{tag}”
    – Enter itemname and desired tag
    – Click “Try it out!”

More sophisticated way:

  • Open a terminal (on osx/linux you are good, using windows curl is needed to be downloaded first) and send the command:
curl -X PUT --header "Content-Type: application/json" --header "Accept: application/json" "http://<ip>:8080/rest/items/<itemname>/tags/<tagname>"

(replace <ip>,<itemname>,<tagname> with your values)

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Hi,
When will the Skill Supported Shutters? In the Moment i can only say „Wohnzimmer auf x%“.
I want to so „Wohnzimmer runter“ too.

Thanks

Lars

Maybe I am wrong, but I am almost pretty sure this is a limitation of the smart home api not of the skill:
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/smart-home-skill-api-reference

So amazon needs to extend the api capability first.

Hi,
I spoke with Amazon and they Said that is Supported.
And when You spell the command Alexa say: My Device is Not Supported for this Command.

@Rickecho Thank You!

I followed your instructions and tagged my device via the REST api/addon. Next, I went to alexa.amazon.com from my computer, went to Smart Home menu and discovered the device. Next, I created a group, “Kitchen” in my case, and added the device to the that group. Last, I say aloud “Alexa, set the kitchen lights to 50%”. It works! I’ll continue to play with it.

strange problem here,

everything was working some time back with my thermostats but when i tried to tell Alexa to change the temperature i got as a reply : "sorry something went wrong"
however the temperature got changed as ask.
im running on openHAB build 1032

Group S_LR_AC "Livingroom Thermostat"   ["Thermostat"] 

Number	S_LR_AC_T	"Livingroom Thermostat current" (S_LR_AC)   [ "CurrentTemperature" ]    {channel="zwave:device:15b94866380:node13:sensor_temperature"}
Number	S_LR_AC_SC	"Livingroom Thermostat target"  (S_LR_AC)   [ "TargetTemperature" ] {channel="zwave:device:15b94866380:node13:thermostat_setpoint_cooling"}
String  S_LR_AC_MO  "Livingroom Thermostat mode"    (S_LR_AC)   [ "homekit:HeatingCoolingMode" ]

Hi matt, that can happen if the command takes too long to return . Now ,
this could be myopenhab or it could be oh not returning from that command
in time . Does this happen consistently?

Hi Dan,
at the moment its happening every time, but only for the Thermostat tagging.
other things tagged as “Lightning” or “Switchable” are working without any issue.

also if i ask Alexa to change the temperature, thge same gets immediately changed in openHAB but still getting the “sorry something went wrong”

Given personal data security is somewhat important these days, is there any onformation on how the links between Amazon, myopenHAB.org and my local openhab server are secured? This skill is of great interest to me, but only if I can be sure the whole system is secure. Thanks

It’s not totally clear to me… What device name will alexa control and where is that name defined?

For example, I want to be able to tell alexa to pause what’s playing on the tv. I want to adjust the name of the"device" so it’s more natural of a command instead of “Alexa, turn tv mute on” or something of the nature. It’s awkward. It would be nice to just say “Alexa, mute the tv” or “Alexa, Pause the tv”.

Another example, Alexa, Turn “the kitchen lights” [OFF/ON]
Where is “the kitchen lights” defined?

tldr

  1. Where do you define the audible name of the device that Alexa will control? Is it the item label?
  2. Can the name be a string?

The Audible name of the device is defines in the item definition and there it is the label. Using your kitchen lights example it might be something like that:

Switch GF_KitchenLight_State "kitchen Lights" <light_icon> ["Switchable"]

Just typed it, there might be errors

Thomas

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Thanks for clarifying.

It seems like “TV” is reserved work/phrase with Alexa because that wasn’t very responsive. It also seems like articles can be used without including them in the label. In one case I chose to use “Television”. For example:

Switch Alexa_TV_Power "Television" ["Switchable"]

Verbal Command:

"Alexa, TURN(or SWITCH) (the(optional)) Televsion [ON/OFF]"

That’s ok. But for example, if I want to mute the TV, it becomes an awkward expression because “mute” is not a valid command for openhab/alexa. Or maybe it’s reserved for Alexa’s speaker?

Non-Intuitive Example:

 "Alexa, switch television mute ON"

Alternatively, I could say:

"Alexa, SET television volume mute to zero percent"

but, then I don’t know the last volume level amount to return to.

Maybe this is a limitation of Alexa and/or the binding, but I’m trying to find the most natural/intuitive expressions for Alexa.

how do we know when an upgrade of functionality is available?

i would love to have scenes in it. I now we can work with rules for example turn on watch tv and then a rule that dims the lights, puts on the tv, closes the curtains.

but in most domotica systems you could just send 1 Byte value and te scene is set.

is there a way to send values (bytes) to a knx installation?

I think Alexa has it’s own scenes, but I personally haven’t messed with them too much.

I’m not sure that’s how OH works. A “Scene” in OH, IMO, is just a set of devices and controlled by a a rule with some logic. Couldn’t you just create a dummy for item for Alexa such as “Theater Mode” and then tell alexa to switch Theater Mode On/Off. Then your OH rule will do what you want with the ON/OFF command.

Scenes are rules in OH. Since scenes are basically a set of presets for devices and rules are conditional if/then operations it puzzles me how they can be banded together.

Personally I think they should be different things. Maybe that’ll happen eventually.

Until scenes are officially supported no 3rd party app will recognise them.