This is my first post in this forum and that’s my first time using OpenHab. It’s been an amazing journey so far.
I have been insisting using this approach, but I am not sure if it’s possible or whether I am going against OH3 best practices. My idea is getting OH3 working along with my Echo Dot, which already has quite a few devices connected to it.
Right now, Alexa does its job alone when asked by using the command “Alexa, turn on my TV”, for example.
My idea is to create a visual representation of this automation using OH3, where any command sent to OH3 would go straight to Alexa, and then, Alexa would interact with the devices themselves.
I already tried an Alexa Binding that does a great job controlling the Echo Dot device itself (eg. increasing/decreasing volume, playing stations, reading flash briefings, etc), but I couldn’t find a way to control the devices. I noticed that OH3 can find Alexa’s devices and show them in my inbox, but no channels are available for them.
Here’s is the illustration of what I am trying to do:
Interesting. I don’t see why this should not work. I also have a device which is not compatible with openhab (yet) only controlled by alexa and then openHAB controls the device through alexa.
However I do not recommend building everything with this approach… Let me explain
You are dependent on Amazon and Alexa. What if you want to change to Siri or Google Home at a later point?
You control your devices mostly through the alexa app. When you start to add many devices this will be not a feasible option (IMO).
It’d add as much devices as possible directly to openHAB and only add everything that is not compatible with openHAB via Alexa.
(I am using openHAB 2.5.12 and not v.3. However I guess this should not change)
I installed the Amazon Echo Control Binding, added my amazon Account and by discovering devices with the Amazon Echo Control Binding I found by light and it shows up in Paper UI:
