Hi Benji… Can you give a bit more info on how you’ve setup the Alexa skill… I have my own instance of openhab-cloud on a virtual server and a Node.js & WSGI server that I already host a couple of Alexa skills on but I’m struggling to see how I could host the OpenHAB Alexa skill myself.
Hi Mark, did you have a look at this Project? It gives you all the details, only thing is that you can only create API Version 2 skills with a little trick as described here.
Hi Michael,
I have the exact same question.Alexa skill for openhab 2 is great but from the point of user utility having timmer based commands integrated with regular on/off commands makes a lot more sence.I want to achieve the same. Do you have any idea how can this be done?
Hi… Yeah, I’ve seen that… Only problem for me is that’s still talking about hosting the skill on AWS as a Lambda and needing an OAUTH2 provider such as Amazon Login. Ideally, I’d like to host the skill on my own server.
It should not be that hard to build, rasa.ai can provide the NLP, I would still use hosted TTS and Speech to Text because the open source alternatives are just not there yet. The advantage of using rasa is that you could do a whole lot more then what Alexa allows you to do.
I configured Alexa on my OH v2.1 and its been running without issue for a few months. Since upgrading to v2.2 I’ve been having intermittent issues with Alexa saying device is not responding. If I check myopenhab it say my device is online. I can also for example switch the fan on from basic UI. If I check again later when it starts working again.
First any one else having Alexa issues since upgrading?
How do I go about troubleshooting this?
Mostly still the cloud which is overloaded. The Status page on the “online” indicator are not reliable. You should check you can reach paperui/habpanel through the dashboard of myopenhab to see if it is really online. Furthermore, even if there would be a problem with 2.2 the outages of the cloud would much more recognizable for you (based on my own experience how often it is offline or delayed).
Error: Could not inform the listener … about the ‘REMOVED’
Hi,
normally everything works fine: alexa skill + homekit…
But if I change the items file I’ll get the error:
Could not inform the listener 'org.openhab.io.homekit.internal.HomekitChangeListener@ada722' about the 'REMOVED' ....
I’ve double checked the items file.
It’s a very simple one:
Group gVoiceCommands "SprachKommandos"
Switch VoiceCommand_AlexaLoudspeaker "Lautsprecher" (gVoiceCommands) [ "Switchable" ]
...
So - does anyone have an idea?
By the way - I confused about using homekit or hue-emulation?
Can’t we make our own skill, which uses local connection? Just like Hue or Belkin did it? That would probably reduce the cloud load, as probably many people are going to use the local function instead. As far as i heard there’s almost no latency. Edit: Nevermind, not possible as those are builtin skills which can not be changed or extended.
Also splitting is possible, so you can use thermostats using myopenhab and hue for all the lights. That’s something someone should write down on how that’s done.
Are you saying it is possible to expose certain devices to only Hue emulation or the Alexa skill? As far as I was aware it wasn’t possible since they use the same HomKit tagging format. Until a new syntax is agreed upon to expose items to different services independently I didn’t think this was possible.
It would be great if it was. I would much rather use local control where possible.
No, but you can expose them at the same time. First do all the myopenhab stuff, that shouldn’t have an impact on the hue stuff, then disconnect from myopenhab and do the hue stuff, alexa won’t find any more myopenhab devices. Then just don’t ask her again to scan as that could cause problems. If I’m not mistaken that should work.
A little Offtopic: Do you know where the discussion is about how to handle the exposing stuff? I remember there was one about a year ago, can’t believe its still not clear what to do.
That sounds like too much work. Especially given how often I tend to break things. 
With Alexa’s tendency to rediscover deleted items, I would be afraid that the work would be in vain anyway once you re enabled both Hue and Alexa.
I believe this was the original issue discussion. I could have sworn I saw an updated issue just the other day, but can’t for the life of me find it now.
I am trying to add a Switch to my items that is discoverable by Alexa
item
Switch Fan_Control “House Fan” (gHVAC) [“Lighting”]
rest
{“link”:“http://192.168.0.0/rest/items/Fan_Control",“state”:“OFF”,“type”:“Switch”,“name”:“Fan_Control”,“label”:"House Fan”,“category”:“light”,“tags”:[“Lighting”],“groupNames”:[“gHVAC”]}
I also tried having a “Switchable” tag to no avail
The only items with Tags have labels
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
and on a second question, I have my bindings updated via apt-get
Maybe I need to pull newer bindings from git?
Tom
Currently, I have added only 2 Light Switches to my OpenHab Items with a [ “Lighting” ] tag and those show up when I scan for new devices.
But what is strange is that when I scan for devices, I am also seeing 3 “Brightness” devices and 10 “Color” items as well which corresponds to the 3 Lux and 10 Color Hue bulbs I have as well. My items file do not have these items included so I’m uncertain of why these keep showing up.
The ‘Color’ Items also so show an On and Off button and Power levels, and not actual color setting as well.
As an example, here are a few of the “Color” items Alexa is scanning as an Openhab2 device. The do not include a [“Lighting”] or other Alexa type tag.
Color FF_Light_FamilyCF_1 "Ceiling Fan 1" <colorwheel> (FF_Family, Family_Lights, Lights, gdashboard) ["iss:room:FamilyRoom", "iss:type:DevRGBLight"] { channel="hue:0210:00178824e7e9:13:color" }
Color FF_Light_FamilyCF_2 "Ceiling Fan 2" <colorwheel> (FF_Family, Family_Lights, Lights, gdashboard) ["iss:room:FamilyRoom", "iss:type:DevRGBLight"] { channel="hue:0210:00178824e7e9:14:color" }
Color FF_Light_FamilyCF_3 "Ceiling Fan 3" <colorwheel> (FF_Family, Family_Lights, Lights, gdashboard) ["iss:room:FamilyRoom", "iss:type:DevRGBLight"] { channel="hue:0210:00178824e7e9:15:color" }
Color FF_Light_FamilyCF_4 "Ceiling Fan 4" <colorwheel> (FF_Family, Family_Lights, Lights, gdashboard) ["iss:room:FamilyRoom", "iss:type:DevRGBLight"] { channel="hue:0210:00178824e7e9:16:color" }Is there a way to keep these from showing up?
Have you checked your paper ui? Maybe the items are linked there.
Maybe I need additional bindings…
I have the following bindings
alarmdecoder
modbus
nest
network
ntp
zwave
mail actions
and of course
myopenhab cloud
I bet I am missing something…
Again my item is just an openHAB Switch that I can use in rules…
tom
I checked that, but have nothing linked to my hue items, so unsure why the OH2 skill is adding the with a brightness and color. Here’s an example of one.
It seems that things started working after a STOP and START of openhab
A simple Restart was not sufficient
Tom
Hi all,
unfortunately I’m suffering from the unreliable alexa service as well. Most of the time, alexa tells me that my device is not reachable. Meanwhile we were used to switch most of the devices by vioce.
As far as I understood this postings, it’s a matter of myopenhab-cloud.
What is your recommendation now? Is it going to get better again (because there are some improvements in development) and I just need to wait or do I need another solution?
Would be really appreciate your opinion. The WAF decreases rapidly 
Michael
You may already know this, but what I found that half the time when Alexa told me a device was unreachable was because I was in the wrong account.
Unsure if you are in the same situation as I am with separate accounts for family members. Thus make sure you are on your account. And also seems you need to setup each account/phone separately with the skills and devices you want to use (I think)