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Jon00 Homeseer/Echo Skill Helper for Homeseer 3 & Homeseer 4

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    Many thanks Ian...appreciated.
    Jon

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      All of a sudden this morning, I am no longer able to use voice commands for HomeSeer. I don't necessarily think it's an issue with the plugin, but I figured I would post here just to see if anyone has any ideas. Up until last night, it was working as expected. Starting this morning, whenever I issue a voice command, I either get no response at all, or a response of "I'm sorry. That command was not recognized.". There are no clues in the HS log, and I have rebooted the HS server. Any ideas?

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        If you are not seeing anything in the log then the HS skill is not working. Obvious candidates are MyHS but you may get more responses if you post in the Alexa Homeseer Home Automation forum.
        Jon

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          Thanks Jon. You've given me what I needed. I saw this in the log right after the restart, but it's been a while, and I couldn't remember what all was required for voice to work. I'll follow up on this.

          Code:
          8/2/2021 4:04:27 PM
          HomeSeer
          Warning
          MyHS could not connect to server: No such host is known

          Comment


            Hi jon00 , I read through the documentation but did not see it mentioned anywhere, does your plugin/script support SSML tags in the Alexa responses?

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              I don't filter out SSML tags but in the context of using with HomeSeer Home Automation skill, no. They appear to be filtered out between the Homeseer skill and Amazon.
              Jon

              Comment


                Originally posted by jon00 View Post
                I don't filter out SSML tags but in the context of using with HomeSeer Home Automation skill, no. They appear to be filtered out between the Homeseer skill and Amazon.
                Ok, thanks for the insights. I've been able to (unintentionally) reproduce a lot of what the HS Home Automation skill and your plugin does by using the HS Smart Home skill and Node-red. It's a little more involved but I have the flexibility of using any phrase I want to control/trigger devices or events, plus the added benefit of using SSML and dynamic volume settings for Alexa responses.

                It is extra work since it seems the simpler/dumber HS Smart Home skill doesn't pass back things like the Echo device that was triggered, but which I then detect in NR for steering logic for responses. If i can convince the family that "ask and tell Homeseer" is not a big deal then I might instead use your plugin instead.

                As usual, thanks for all your contributions like this plugin, it constantly raises the bar of what HS can do

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                  Thanks. If you have the time, I'd be interested to know what the difference in response speed between using the HomeSeer Home Automation skill and NR steering for a response.

                  One advantage of using this script is that you can setup conversations which you could not do with NR (correct me if wrong!). An example of this is shown in Moskus video embedded in the first post of this thread.
                  Jon

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by jon00 View Post
                    Thanks. If you have the time, I'd be interested to know what the difference in response speed between using the HomeSeer Home Automation skill and NR steering for a response.

                    One advantage of using this script is that you can setup conversations which you could not do with NR (correct me if wrong!). An example of this is shown in Moskus video embedded in the first post of this thread.
                    So what's happening the way i do it know:

                    Home Automation skill is used strictly for discoveing devices and events to bring them into the Alexa account. Devices become Devices and Events become Scenes in Alexa.
                    Alexa Routines used to trigger Scenes (HS4 events), which means I can pick any phrase I want.

                    My events are complex and call other sub-events for building the response text. For example, on my Goodnight event it checks if any windows are doors are open, and builds a string of text based on which ones are. It also determines if the doors can be successfully locked and again builds situation specific status text depending on what happened (lock jammed, etc). The event sequence ends with loading the final status text into a HS4 virtual device which triggers a NR flow to speak the text.

                    There is a NR node that can detect which Echo device just responded to a command, so I use some logic in NR to set a flow router for the response text before the HS4 VD is set with the response. As you can imagine, the timing on this is tricky and I have to insert one or two second delays in strategic places in my HS4 events.

                    And to make it worse/harder for me.... the Home Automation skill shows *nothing* in the HS4 logs of where the event trigger came from... so I have no idea if the event was triggered locally or by Alexa. So now I have to make a voice-command "pre-event" that only the Alexa account uses, which in turn sets a HS4 VD to indicate a voice command initiated event which warrants a Alexa response. If the event was triggered non-verbally then I don't want Echos to start talking.

                    Based on all of the above, I'm definitely going to give your plugin a whirl, lol. Working out the logic flow in my head I suspect your helper will relieve me of a lot of sub-events and logic in determining whether a voice response is warranted for any given HS4 event.

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                      It all sounds amazingly complex. I have also been following your Alexa TTS methods using NR. That too seems unnecessarily complex as it seems you are placing your TTS text in device strings etc. The use of Voice Monkey (uses an official Alexa API) which I integrated using virtual speaker clients seems so much easier as it is just an extension of physical speaker clients and therefore built into events (speak something)? Maybe I'm missing something about using NR for this?
                      Jon

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                        Originally posted by jon00 View Post
                        It all sounds amazingly complex. I have also been following your Alexa TTS methods using NR. That too seems unnecessarily complex as it seems you are placing your TTS text in device strings etc. The use of Voice Monkey (uses an official Alexa API) which I integrated using virtual speaker clients seems so much easier as it is just an extension of physical speaker clients and therefore built into events (speak something)? Maybe I'm missing something about using NR for this?
                        The only thing I worry about Voice Monkey is that it's a third-party service that has yet to reveal its monetization model. What happens when they are no longer able to stay viable? If they open-sourced their code so that anyone could launch a service instance in their own AWS account then that would be awesome. I would hate to place all my effort and time into a service that has no clear road map at the moment. At least with the NR stuff one seems more in control.

                        But your suggestions warrant some thought and contemplation, so I'm not ruling out anything.

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                          True, but there are risks everywhere especially in HA integration.
                          • Many of NR and other Alexa Implementations use cookies to replicate Amazon web pages etc. Amazon could change that and break many of these hacks.
                          • No one would have believed Imperihome would fold which caused grief for many here.
                          • Even purchasing a 3P HS Plugin is at risk i.e. the Author going MIA (I could list quite a few now) so no ongoing support.
                          Anyway, each to their own! Due to the flexibility of HS integration, the good thing is that people can use different methods to reach the same goal.


                          Jon

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                            This is one of my favorite apps as it gives me fantastic voice control of Homeseer via Alexa, which is having more and more accessibility.

                            I remember years ago when I had a wireless microphone that plugged into HS2 for voice recognition. Clumsy at best.

                            One amusing story, I have a routine to run an event to turn off all of the lights. Works great with Alexa.

                            I had the Jon00 response as “David I will turn off the lights”.

                            What I heard was “David the first will turn off the lights”

                            After over a year, I finally got around to fixing it 🤣

                            DSteiNeuro

                            HS3Pro

                            MSI Cubi Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) 16GB DDRl RAM

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                              Originally posted by DSteiNeuro View Post

                              I had the Jon00 response as “David I will turn off the lights”.

                              What I heard was “David the first will turn off the lights”
                              Good plugins make you feel like royalty, don't they

                              Comment


                                Loved jon00Alexa in HS3 but can't get it or some of your other products to work in HS4. In this case I don't get an entry in the ini file when I speak 'Alexa, ask HomeSeer to..."
                                Is it possible that I missed something when I copied the files over?

                                Thanks.
                                Don

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