Release Candidate and Support: Amazon Echo Control Binding

[Daniel_Wilhelm]

Where can i find it

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@Daniel_Wilhelm

Where can i find it

In the player:

You've received an Alexa Link

Just click on the speaker symbol.

[idkpmiller (Paul Miller)]

Hi there,
I am using Beta 16 Public and following your instructions in the docs section.

I have had some sucesses and some problems too.
I will focus on the positives at this stage as the issues seem to fall into two camps:

1. I need educating
2. Need enhancement to make outcome useful.

So first of a great addition to the bindings. Good job
I set up using PaperUI for the Things, and items usingh files. But I will probable delete on the next update and look at doing it all i files.

I used the amazon.com.au site by typing in the site name and it connects great.

The following are working with no issues to report.

• control volume
• Play weather report
• Play Good Morning News
• Play Flash Briefing
• Play Traffic News
• Switch on TuneIn Radio
• Player - Play
• Player - Pause

Regards

Paul

[idkpmiller (Paul Miller)]

@michi

Tutorial for playing an alarm sound with an openHAB rule:

Open the PaperUI
Navigate to the Control Section
Open the Drop-Dow
Select the Sound you want to here
Write down the text in the square brackets. e.g. ECHO:system_alerts_repetitive01 for the nightstand sound
Create a rule for start playing the sound:

I cannot seem to follow this instruction where in the PaperUI can I do the following:

• Navigate to the Control Section
• Open the Drop-Dow

Any chance of a screenshot?

Thanks

Paul

[James_Hiscott]

Thanks for all your work on this binding, it is super cool and this thread is the one i always check to see what new stuff you have managed to add.

One small question. if i am using the marketplace version. Do i still follow the steps below, I just dont need to replace the jar file as it updates automatically (or do i somehow need to update via the marketplace)?

Steps for update from previous beta (If you want use the new channels):

Remove discovered echo devices from your inbox
Remove all your existing echo things (If you have created them in PaperUI)
Replace now the binding jar
Create your things to get the new channel

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@idkpmiller

cannot seem to follow this instruction where in the PaperUI can I do the following:

• Navigate to the Control Section
• Open the Drop-Dow

Any chance of a screenshot?

Hi Paul,

1. Goto the Thing section in the Paper UI, select your echo thing, click on “Show More”

2. Scroll down to the playAlarmSound channel, check that a channel is created, if it is not yet done, create one

3. Goto the Control section in the Paper UI

4. Select the room tab where you thing is defined (In my case ‘ALEXA’), scroll down to the Play Alarm Sound channel:

5. Click on the drop-down-arrow, if there is no drop down visible at the channel, it helps to refresh the browser

6. The part inside the brackets are the id which must be used in a rule to trigger the alarm.

I hope this will help you!

Kind regards,
Michael

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@James_Hiscott

Do i still follow the steps below, I just dont need to replace the jar file as it updates automatically (or do i somehow need to update via the marketplace)?

Hi James,

I’ am not really sure about the handling of the .jar file. But the safe way is to unistall the binding and reinstall them.

Things must be removed and newly created if the was defined in the Paper UI to get new channels.
If the things are defined in a .thing file, you only have to define the new channels in the .items file to get them. There is no need to remove the thing in the .thing file.

Best regards,
Michael

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

Hello All!

Please support this thread with a like. This feature could be used to implement the long requested text to speak (TTS) function.
There are already 85 likes, so maybe amazon will pay attention on it.

Best regards, Michael

[Andrew_Pawelski]

My amazon account thing is offline

Status: OFFLINE - COMMUNICATION_ERROR Unknown host name ‘alexa.amazon.com’. Maybe your internet connection is offline

However I think it is still working?

[salexes]

Cannot create thing. No binding found that supports creating a thing of type amazonechocontrol:echoshow.

How can I fix this @michi ?

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@Andrew_Pawelski

Status: OFFLINE - COMMUNICATION_ERROR Unknown host name ‘alexa.amazon.com’. Maybe your internet connection is offline

Hi, it seems that you have at least a problem with the DNS, so that the server could not be resolved. I expect, that this is a temporary problem.

Regards,
Michael

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

Very good news!!!
Coming soon: the next version of my binding will provide a real textToSpeech channel!
Stay tuned!

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@salexes

Cannot create thing. No binding found that supports creating a thing of type amazonechocontrol:echoshow.

How can I fix this @michi ?

Hi salex,
sorry, this was a bug in the current openHAB 2.3 build. Thanks for reporting. It is fixed now, please download again!
Best regards,
Michael

[salexes]

Perfect, thank you!
Wow if only every software would have such a quick bug fix time! Impressive!

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

I am proudly to present:
The worlwide first implementation for Text To Speech on Alexa devices for a home automation platform.
It’s a native implemenation, so you must not hack any hardware and I do not use the bluetooth connection. I use the brand new feature of a routine with custom text. I hope it is in all amazon regions already available. It’s currently tested with amazon.de
You will find the Release Candidate download link on the top of this thread

[Strixer950 (Jan-Marcus Eskes)]

@michi I really love what you did there Thanks for the awesome work Is the RC stable or should i wait for the release?

[sihui]

@michi

first implementation for Text To Speech on Alexa

Thx, works as expected

[Falk (Falk S.)]

@michi

I am proudly to present:
The worlwide first implementation for Text To Speech on Alexa devices for a home automation platform.
It’s a native implemenation, so you must not hack any hardware and I do not use the bluetooth connection. I use the brand new feature of a routine with custom text. I hope it is in all amazon regions already available. It’s currently tested with amazon.de
You will find the Release Candidate download link on the top of this thread

This is a GREAT feature and another great value add for openHAB!
Thank you michi!

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@Strixer950

Is the RC stable or should i wait for the release?

Hi, Jan-Marcus,

I does not expect any problems. Only the Discover feature is refactored, but this is only be used while installation phase. The binding itself works now since 7 month on my installation without any problems. But if you are not sure, you can wait for the response of other users.

And this release should be the last one, with breaking changes.

The release will be the merge binding in the office distribute, but currently I do not know when this happen. Maybe the binding fail to reach the 2.3, then it will take a very long waiting time.

Regards,
Michael

[Andrew_Pawelski]

My amazon account stays at uninitialised
If I add the amazon site (in my case amazon.com) PaerUI shows an error 500 Internal server error, then going back to the thing, the site is not saved.