Play BBC Radio using echocontrol?

Add-ons Text-to-Speech
1

Hi

I would like to use Openhab to wake me up to BBC Radio 2 in the mornings. I’ve got the echocontrol binding setup and working but cannot get this specific requirement to work since the BBC stopped working on tunein.

Saying “Play Radio 2” to the Echo works fine (and uses the BBC Sounds skill) but I can’t find any way to get this action to fire using any of the echocontrol Items. There doesn’t seem to be a generic item that just gets Alexa to react to a text string as if it was said out loud?

Am I missing something?

Many thanks
Steve

2

Didn’t this work (copied from the documentation):
startRoutine String W echo, echoshow, echospot Write Only! Type in what you normally say to Alexa without the preceding “Alexa,”

3

Hi

No, I thought it would but this is specifically to start an Alexa routine (a sequence of events you can setup in the Alexa app) unless anyone has evidence to suggest otherwise…

Thanks
Steve

4

I’m in Germany and the Echo here starts BBC Radio 2 (TuneIn) via a Voicecommand without any BBC Skill.

5

Hi

Yeah, I suspect it’s a UK restriction. Forgetting OpenHab for a moment, in the UK we used to be able to use BBC Radio as an alarm, but BBC Radio was removed from TuneIn a few months back as there’s now a BBC Sounds skill

I can use the BBC Sounds Skill, but no way to automatically trigger it through the OpenHab API without a further voice prompt…

Thanks

Steve

6

This is the official line from the BBC regarding audio live streaming in the U.K:

We are pushing the boundaries as far as we can with our custom skill but Amazon does not make features such as alarms and multi-room playback available to custom skills. We will continue to work with Amazon to find a solution.

From here

Hope something turns up. There are a lot of unhappy people. (not me, I listen to BBC radio 4 abroad!)

7

You cannot setup an Alexa routine to trigger the skill?

8

Hi

Thanks - appreciated

Just to return to the core question though, can anyone confirm 100% whether it’s possible to send any command to echo via the Openhab API? (As if you’d said it to her?). I’d this were possible then all concerns about TuneIn and the BBC go away, as when using voice, you can get BBC radio to play with one command

Thanks

Steve

9

Hi Bruce

Yep, tried that! I can, but when the skill is initiated by the routine, it then needs a further voice command to select The BBC radio station

As the routines interface also doesn’t cater for me to ‘say anything’ to Alexa I’m coming to the conclusion that Amazon have not made this possible (although would still be great if someone could confirm 100%)

Thanks

Steve

10

I don’t own an Alexa, can you confirm that you can simply send it a URL of a valid MP3 ? (I’ll explain why I ask if the answer is yes)