Release Candidate and Support: Amazon Echo Control Binding

[Ianc99 (Ian C)]

I’ve downloaded the latest version from the top of this thread and manually installed it on my OH 2.3 server (Yes. I know. prehistoric). I can connect to amazon.co.uk and can discover all my Echos but when I try to do text to speech I get errors.

Quick question before I go any further - Am I wasting my time trying to get it to work on top of OH 2.3?

[edwolfe3 (Ed)]

@michi

have all my echos (12) TTS in a group called gEchoTTS. When I want to send a TTS message to that group, I get:

This is a known issue. The amazon echo have a request limit. Do not use all devices for TTS at the same time.

Is there a reasonable acceptable way to perform make an announcement like when you say “alexa, announce the dryer is finished”?

[mancer (Alexander)]

I’m trying to use an Echo routine to read multiple temperature values (from multiple Xiaomi sensors).
To do that I created a Switch item that will receive an ON command if Alexa hears a certain phrase.
However, I’m not happy with the value she gets and interprets it.
E.g. the Item is from type Number and has the state “22.31 °C”, so she actually reads this (22.31 C).
Is there a way for her to read “22,3 degree celcius” (comma instead of point) instead?

[H102 (CM6.5 H102)]

@mancer

E.g. the Item is from type Number

How is it configured? If Number:Temperature then try just Number without the : part.

[mancer (Alexander)]

It is indeed configured as

Number:Temperature tempLiving "Wohnzimmer [%.1f °C]" <temperature>...

Removing the :Temperature prevents Alexa from adding the letter C (so I’ll add “degree” manually, which is alright), but she’s still using . instead of ,
So I guess I’ll have to manually transform the value from 22.31 to 22,3, right?

[H102 (CM6.5 H102)]

@mancer

So I guess I’ll have to manually transform the value from 22.31 to 22,3, right?

Most, here in US, are trying to remove the , and add the . So I’ll avoid adding more post than needed on this topic (over 2k now) to guess at what’s needed. Have a look at the topic below and if you still have problems then start a new topic with the number transformation as issue.

Working with Number:Temperature item type

@mcqwerty In some cases, I think it’s better to just test the rules with openHAB than just rely on the errors generated in VSCode. Especially with new features, I have seen some unnecessary errors in VSCode that are interpreted just fine in openHAB. This works from my testing. I just want to point out that you can’t increment a variable defined as final (val). Also, I would recommend defining the QuantityType specific dimension over the overall Number one. var temp = myNestAmbientTemperature.…

[linsenpago (Alex Pani)]

Hi!

I know it was asked two or three times here… but, will it be possible to read the temperature of the internal sensor of the echo plus?

Is there a way?

[jwiseman (Mr. Wiseman (OH 4.2 Snapshot on Pi4))]

Force Unit Selection - Announcement

Anybody else starting to get this message before your own TTS starts?

“Force Unit Selection”

Best, Jay

[BrianP6 (Brian Humphreys)]

Yes I get exactly the same, it’s really annoying!
It started last night about 9pm ish? UK time.
I’ve had to comment those lines out in my rules which means I no longer get to find out (woken up) when my Alz wife goes walkabout round the house at night.

[jwiseman (Mr. Wiseman (OH 4.2 Snapshot on Pi4))]

@jwiseman

Force Unit Selection

Looks like Amazon fixed it in the US now.

Best, Jay

[BrianP6 (Brian Humphreys)]

Seems to be OK here in the UK too this evening. Hope it continues.

Brian.

[Andrew_Pawelski]

Can anyone tell me the syntax I need to use for my rollershutter? I have an RF based shutter I want to either have at 0 or 100 but want to use the language - “open, close, raise, lower” but in either case it just goes from 0 to 100

This item seems to only increment by one when using raise or lower:

Rollershutter BR1_Blindtest "Test Blind [%d%%]" {alexa="RangeController.rangeValue" [category="INTERIOR_BLIND", friendlyNames="@Setting.Opening", supportedRange="0:100:100", unitOfMeasure="Percent", actionMappings="Close=100,Open=0,Lower=(+100),Raise=(-100)", stateMappings="Closed=100,Open=0"]}

[m4rk (Mark)]

You do not want positions other than open and close! What happens if you use, say 90, for the incremental settings. Besides its a skill topic not a control topic

[michi (Michael Geramb)]

@linsenpago

I know it was asked two or three times here… but, will it be possible to read the temperature of the internal sensor of the echo plus?

You can try if a device is created for this (You have to turn on the smart home device discovery in the Account thing) with the preview version from here. I have no device with internal sensor, so I can’t test it.

[Andrew_Pawelski]

@m4rk

You do not want positions other than open and close! What happens if you use, say 90, for the incremental settings. Besides its a skill topic not a control topic

Im sorry, I dont understand what you mean?

[m4rk (Mark)]

@Andrew_Pawelski

I want to either have at 0 or 100 but want to use the language - “open, close, raise, lower”

That reads like you want it only Open or Closed and no where in between even with the commands Raise and Lower. Did I misunderstand? Also, you have Raise and Lower defined like this
Lower=(+100),Raise=(-100) Which means they will move to either fully open or closed position with the commands Raise, Lower.
Normally usage for Raise and Lower is, for example, (+/-10) so when commanding Raise, Lower the blinds move +/-10% from the current position.

This thread is for controlling your Echo devices using openHAB but in your question you are using Alexa skill’s to control your blinds. The thread for skills discussions is here:

Official Alexa Smart Home Skill for openHAB 2

Does Alexa only work with one language at a time? Yes, that would appear to be the case. You need to chose on or the other.

… Something I knocked up earlier

[Trinitus01 (Tom)]

@michi Hi, can you please add announcement for all devices or a group of devices? So it would be possible to send only one request and ensure the announcement received by every device without “Too Many Requests.” error. I think its the wrong way to put this feature to tts because the alexa app also only allow to send announcements to all devices or a group of devices and output tts to only one device.

Regards,

Trintius01

[Andrew_Pawelski]

@m4rk

This thread is for controlling your Echo devices using openHAB but in your question you are using Alexa skill’s to control your blinds. The thread for skills discussions is here:

@m4rk my apologies, I will post in the right one

[Trinitus01 (Tom)]

@michi Hi, i pulled your project, created a new ChannelHandlerMultiAnnouncement and added it to the AccountHandler to make it possible to send one “multiAnnouncement” to all devices connected to an account with only one request. (like the ChannelHandlerSendMessage) Ive seen the sendAnnouncement method was well prepared to handle multiple devices. It works fine, got a new channel called “Announcement” on the Amazon Account Thing. To the fact that this is the first time i worked on an openHAB Binding i don’t know if this is the right way to implement an announcement to the account. Maybe i could send you the project and you would check the changes? I also would implement “groupAnnouncement” like you suggested in a previous post - if you like - but i have to know if i do all the things the right way.

Regards,

Trinitus01

[Trinitus01 (Tom)]

@michi Hi, i found a bug in the announcements sent to my fire tv cube. If i send the following string to the fire tv cube it show the message with the xml tags on the screen:

<speak><amazon:effect name="whispered">Dies ist ein Test</amazon:effect></speak>

Maybe its the same behavior on echos with a display like the echo show aso. I don’t own one of these devices, so i am not able to verify it. Can anyone else verify this?
I fixed it and now it only shows the string without the xml tags.

Today i also found the time to implement your idea with the stacked or grouped announcements. Now it waits 1 seconds if the binding receives more than one announcement with the same speak, text and title. If there are more than one, it sends them all with only one request. Tested for multiple commands and for groups and it works like a charm.
I only added it to the announcements, not to tts because i don’t wanted to convert a tts to an announcement. They act different on the devices so i still think its better to not mix them up.

Regards,

Trinitus01