Official Alexa Smart Home Skill for openHAB 2

Rangarid · December 2, 2018, 7:26pm

Hi,

is there any detailed documentation on how to get a developer version on amazon for testing? I tried to follow the description in the readme but the web interface seems to have changed a lot since the last time i did something there (around 2 years ago) and also some things from the readme do not seem to match the new interface.

I want to do some alexa skill development but its hard to get into it… Any pointers would be nice.

I already have openhab skill deployed as lambda but i can not find the part for “Under “Event Sources” add a “smart home skill” event source, for Application Id, add the Application Id from the Alexa developer portal” in the config. Also the reference links from amazon do not work anymore or are old and do not reflect the new interface.

Any help is appreciated.

Cheers Sam

Edit:
Nevermind, i was on the wrong tier. No Smarthome in EU Frankfurt… Now i just need to setup auth…

Foxejoe · December 2, 2018, 7:41pm

Thanks Dan, Let us know if we can help you.
Can we push amazon to get the skill approved?
Regards
Lorenzo

Hammar · December 3, 2018, 6:52am

Works like a treat to deploy it as your own ‘development skill’

angusc · December 3, 2018, 7:19am

Would there be any “how to” for those of us that are not so PC literate? I have managed to follow other Amazon developer options to deploy skills such as Google for Amazon skill, but it can get very confusing for those not having a Phd in programming

Thanx Chris.

Hammar · December 3, 2018, 7:40am

Not sure there is a guide for it as it involves a couple of things; and unfortunately takes a fair amount of knowledge to deploy yourself.

(1) Deploying Alexa skill into AWS.

You need to have an AWS account
Clone the Alexa openhab skill and edit two files: .env and config.js
.env contains your AWS credentials
config.js needs to be configured for your endpoint. In my case I have a username & password pointed to my home network, via a reverse proxy.
Then you need to deploy the code (using ‘node-lambda deploy’) as a AWS Lambda service. Your Alexa skill will point to this.

(2) Go to the Alexa Developer Console (developer.amazon.com)

Create a Smart Home Skill
Which has to be pointed at the AWS Lambda skill you just deployed.

skatun · December 3, 2018, 9:40am

I am currently experience that the alexa skill is offline. Previously I used the Hue Emulation

Does the skill conflict with Hue Emulation? What happens if you have both? Does you sometime need to reset all devices in the alexa app and do rediscovery? Where are the json database file stored for the tagging, it might be an issue old items not getting deleted.

I will then make a note in the documentation about theses issues:
https://www.openhab.org/docs/ecosystem/alexa/

See, Alexa skill

Saracen · December 5, 2018, 12:31pm

I use both together without any problems.

skatun · December 5, 2018, 12:34pm

@Saracen Whats the benefit of using both?

i use the alexa binding for Text to speech and have been using the emulation so far for controlling my liights, but I am trying to switch over to the skill instead…

Saracen · December 5, 2018, 3:44pm

Probably none now. I started using the Hue emulation for lights and things and never moved them over to the Alexa skills binding. I suppose the Hue emulation is (or was) slightly more robust .

dainosan · December 5, 2018, 6:26pm

True story. Until I started to experience the " value out of range " feedback

stefanbanu · December 5, 2018, 9:42pm

After two days reading how to about Alexa skill and “readme” from Digitaldan page (https://github.com/openhab/openhab-alexa) I was able to publish the lambda function on aws and configure alexa smrt home skill with it (in italian for my own, still in developer mode).
But now I’m stuk with the skill’s “account linking”.
Can I ask you for help me please tabout how to with this settings?
Thank you
Authorization URI:
Access Token URI
Client ID
Client Secret
Client Authentication Scheme
Scope
In the atthached immage you can see what I tried, but doesn’t work. After login to myopenhab, the Alexa skill is not added to the Applications.
Thank you

Rangarid · December 6, 2018, 3:47pm

Hey,

just wanted to let you guys know, that i’m currently working on adopting the alexa skill to v3 payload so that we can use all the other Controllers the SmartHome API offers like Media Controller, Smart TVs and stuff like that. Is anyone already working on that?

I already have some code lines and wrote some tests but its still far from finished.

Is there any way to use the auth mechanism of my.openhab.org? My provider already changed to ipv6 and port forwarding does not work, so i cant test with my local openhab installation… I will write a lot of tests in the beginning so its not really needed from the start but it would be pretty cool to use that for testing.

Cheers

Sam

dty · December 6, 2018, 4:57pm

It’s already been done. We’re just waiting for it to actually be deployed.

zolakk · December 6, 2018, 5:01pm

That is the version I’m using with my private myopenhab and it seems to work fine but I am wondering is it still being worked on/maintained? I see the last commits are quite some time ago

dty · December 6, 2018, 5:12pm

@digitaldan ?

stefanbanu · December 6, 2018, 5:34pm

Nobody willing to help me? We don’t have alexa-skill in Italy, it would be the only way to get the skill.
Where can I find the right information?
Thank you

Rangarid · December 6, 2018, 5:44pm

Thanks for the link. Good to know its already being worked on, saves me time. However if its already there why is it not merged/deployed yet? Looks like there has been no work over the past 8 months…

If the developer in charge does not have the time to maintain it or to developt/test it further i would like to offer my help. I really want to use more items with alexa and unfortunately i can not connect to my openhab instance from outside (is there any way to get alexa to talk to openhab cloud???) so my own custom skill will not work and i dont want to play around too much with https tunnels and so on if there is abetter solution already out there.

Rangarid · December 6, 2018, 5:46pm

Correct URL to items needs to be be https://myopenhab.org/rest/items and not my.openhab like in the config sample

About the oauth stuff in Amazon:

Take the values from there to use login with amazon, after that you can just access the myopenhab instance with basic auth.

Thats actually pretty cool, now i can just deploy the v3 skill on my own and add more features without waiting

dty · December 6, 2018, 6:17pm

Oh perfect. I might try that myself then.

Rangarid · December 6, 2018, 7:08pm

I just tried to deploy the v3 skill and it seems to work. I used the login with amazon and connect with basic auth to myopenhab. I can control all my old items but some do not work as before e.g. dimming a light. Maybe its not 100% compatible. Now i just need to experiment with the new syntax to get all my items into this skill.

Good job so far. Would be pretty nice if that skill could be deployed so we do not have to do it ourselves. Will give more feedback after some playing around.