Release Candidate and Support: Amazon Echo Control Binding

michi · April 29, 2018, 9:44am

Hi Markus,
I can confirm the answer from @federic0, there is no other way to let alexa speak a text provided as string.
I also agree with the other answers concerning the other devices.
Regards,
Michael

Master79 · April 29, 2018, 9:57am

Hi to all.
Thanks for your answers. Yes, it’s the alexa app. I have it on more devices installed. So there is the original thing “alexa apps” and “this device” for other smartphones. Do i need all of them?
Do i need the things file for configuration? All echos are found correctly with serial number in the inbox.
In the future it’s possible to speak a notification without “Das ist deine erinnerung:”""?
Thanks,
Markus

michi · April 29, 2018, 1:41pm

No

Only if you prefer to configure things with the file, otherwise you can use the thing discovered in the inbox.

Nobody nows. The binding uses the API which is used inside the alexa.amazon.de site. Currently there is no such an API for this.
Regards,
Michael

michi · April 29, 2018, 2:02pm

BETA 15 Released

New beta version available. I have provided now two channels to start music from every music provider, including spotify.

You can select the provider in playMusicProvider channel (Use paperUI or create a mapping or rule) and provider the normally spoken text as input for the playMusicVoiceCommand channel (e.g. Yesterday from the beatles)

Please note, that the new channels are not support for audio group devices - this is a limitation in the used amazon API.

And I hope, that I have fixed the bug where the state update stop working after some days.

Regards,
Michael

Daniel_Wilhelm · April 29, 2018, 3:10pm

Habe you got ä Solution for My Problem. The Echo plus is configured like My two other Echo Dots.
when i Change the Volumen in OH the Echo Change the Volume. After that the Slider change back to Zero every time. The Echo still is on the Level i changed to.

Daniel

michi · April 29, 2018, 4:09pm

No, because there is no special handling for the different devices. Technical, the are the same. I know this behavior only from audio groups, because the have no absolute volume level. Please check if the serial number of your echo plus is the one of the device. And maybe you check if the alexa website shows the correct volume, so that we know if it works there.

Is there any other user who own an echo plus?

Regards,
Michael

Daniel_Wilhelm · April 29, 2018, 5:05pm

Hi Michi. You are right… The plus was in ä room Group. When i delete IT from the Group the Sound Level will Show in the right way. Thx.
But the the Two dots Belong to the same group and the volume level is shown correct

Master79 · April 30, 2018, 11:07pm

Hi Michael.
After installing Beta 15 i get this warning and error:

2018-05-01 00:55:32.849 [WARN ] [mazonechocontrol.internal.Connection] - Parsing json failed {}

com.google.gson.JsonSyntaxException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 8 column 1 path $

	at com.google.gson.internal.bind.ReflectiveTypeAdapterFactory$Adapter.read(ReflectiveTypeAdapterFactory.java:224) [22:com.google.gson:2.7.0]

	at com.google.gson.Gson.fromJson(Gson.java:887) [22:com.google.gson:2.7.0]

	at com.google.gson.Gson.fromJson(Gson.java:852) [22:com.google.gson:2.7.0]

	at com.google.gson.Gson.fromJson(Gson.java:801) [22:com.google.gson:2.7.0]

	at com.google.gson.Gson.fromJson(Gson.java:773) [22:com.google.gson:2.7.0]

	at org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol.internal.Connection.parseJson(Connection.java:546) [242:org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol:2.2.0]

	at org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol.internal.Connection.getEnabledFlashBriefings(Connection.java:748) [242:org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol:2.2.0]

	at org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol.handler.AccountHandler.updateFlashBriefingProfiles(AccountHandler.java:591) [242:org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol:2.2.0]

	at org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol.handler.AccountHandler.addFlashBriefingProfileHandler(AccountHandler.java:175) [242:org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol:2.2.0]

	at org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol.handler.FlashBriefingProfileHandler.initialize(FlashBriefingProfileHandler.java:97) [242:org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol:2.2.0]

	at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor72.invoke(Unknown Source) ~[?:?]

	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) ~[?:?]

	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498) ~[?:?]

	at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.internal.common.AbstractInvocationHandler.invokeDirect(AbstractInvocationHandler.java:153) [109:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.10.0.b1]

	at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.internal.common.Invocation.call(Invocation.java:53) [109:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.10.0.b1]

	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [?:?]

	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149) [?:?]

	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624) [?:?]

	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748) [?:?]

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 8 column 1 path $

	at com.google.gson.stream.JsonReader.beginObject(JsonReader.java:385) ~[?:?]

	at com.google.gson.internal.bind.ReflectiveTypeAdapterFactory$Adapter.read(ReflectiveTypeAdapterFactory.java:213) ~[?:?]

	... 18 more

and

2018-05-01 00:55:32.879 [ERROR] [nal.common.AbstractInvocationHandler] - An error occurred while calling method 'ThingHandler.initialize()' on 'org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol.handler.FlashBriefingProfileHandler@xxx': java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 8 column 1 path $

For Info.

Rene · May 1, 2018, 10:22pm

Hi @michi,
thank you for this great binding! Now I can send any text to my Echo Dot via MQTT and openHAB by sending it as topic openHAB/in/RenesEchoDot_Erinnere/command.

There is only a small issue: German umlauts are not transferred correctly. For example my text is “Heute müsst Ihr an folgendes denken”. The Alexa App on my phone shows the umlaut as a question mark in a black square and the Dot does not read it, instead it spells the word and omits the umlaut.

This does not happen when I trigger a reminder in a rule using RenesEchoDot_Erinnere.sendCommand. In this case the app shows everything correctly and the Dot reads everything including umlauts correctly.

So I guess it is a problem with the MQTT binding as described by others here Incorrect character encoding in MQTT binding? and not the AmazonEchoControl binding.

david · May 2, 2018, 3:18am

Has anyone seen Java out of heap space issues after using this binding? It works great but after about 8 days, I start getting heap space errors and have to restart openhab.

I am fairly certain it started when I enabled this binding. I am going to remove it for a couple weeks to see if the issues go away, but thought I would throw this out in case others are seeing something similar.

michi · May 2, 2018, 7:18am

Hello,
can you turn on the debug level trace and sent me the log in a private message?
Thanks for you help!
Regards, Michael

michi · May 2, 2018, 7:21am

Hi Rene,
I agree with you, this seem to be a bug in the MQTT binding.
Best regards,
Michael

Master79 · May 2, 2018, 12:07pm

Hi Michael. I don’t know the correct command of debug and also not to stop it. Can you help me?
Thanks,
Markus

sihui · May 2, 2018, 1:31pm

https://docs.openhab.org/administration/logging.html#defining-what-to-log

log:set TRACE org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol to turn it on,
log:set DEFAULT org.openhab.binding.amazonechocontrol to turn it off.

Master79 · May 2, 2018, 2:57pm

Cool, thanks.

Rene · May 2, 2018, 7:20pm

For now I did a workaround / dirty hack: before sending the text via MQTT I replace all umlauts with their transliteration, eg. “ü” is replaced by “ue”. This works as these characters are received correctly by the MQTT binding and Alexa knows that “fuer” is pronounced the same way as “für”

However, this can only be a hack for the moment until the bug is fixed in the MQTT binding.

Regards,
René

michi · May 2, 2018, 7:52pm

BETA 16
See the top most posting of this thread!

I have added a new channel to start the ‘good morning news’. And I have added a new tutorial for a rule to start music on you favorite music provider in the readme.

oeo · May 3, 2018, 10:56am

Many thanks again for your keeping on developing the binding. Works like a charm.

Andrew_Pawelski · May 3, 2018, 12:43pm

Not sure what ive done - I removed my two excho dots and my amazon account and then uninstalled the market binding, reinstalled then re added my amazon account which is online but now the echo dots are not being discovered?

michi · May 3, 2018, 6:56pm

Hi Andrew,

What you can try:

Go to PaperUI Inbox and select and click on “Show ignored”. Maybe they are show there
Try to restart openHAB. Maybe my binding thought, that they are already discovered
Try to create them manually, you only have to select the account device as bridge and enter the serial number which is shown in the alexa app

Regards,
Michael