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

[Timon]

Forget this post! I found it.

I will say that I wish that HS3 took care of converting the Echo ID to the friendly name. This assumes that the Alexa Smarthome will also return the AEcho ID,

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Wow, 94 pages so I'm going to ask rather than read all of them.

How do you select the Alexa device? I click on the dropdown box to make the selection but it's empty. Is there something one has to do first to get the Alexas to show up?

[jon00]

Read page 20 in the docs.

[Timon]

Read page 20 in the docs.

Yea, I found it shortly after posting and I should have deleted the post rather than just editing it.

I am still having an issue trying to ignore parts of a word. Example many time I want to use a string similar to the following, "Alexa, ask homeseer to turn on Jims light".

The problem is that Alexa will sometimes use "Jims" and other times use 'Jim's". Now I can put both in but if you have a lot of optional phrases separated by "||" you can end up with a very long line.

I've tried putting "'s" in the ignore section and also trying to use "Alexa, ask homeseer to turn on Jim* light" but neither of these will solve the issue. Is there any other way to do it?

[jon00]

Why can't you just use 'jim' which should match on both?

[Timon]

Why can't you just use 'jim' which should match on both?

That's what I thought as well in that if Alexa added a "'s" to any word it would be stripped. Let me do some more testing. There have been times when I thought alexia added an "'s" and it didn't match. It's too far back ini the logs to find right now but I'll keep amnestying eye out.

I haven't used the plugin for a long time as I was waiting for Alexa device ID and busy doing a lot of other stuff. The last time I did to get a custom response you had to do a separate trigger for dimming, on, off and last. Do you still have to do this or is there a way to put ini all in one trigger and including dimming limits?

[jon00]

I haven't used the plugin for a long time as I was waiting for Alexa device ID and busy doing a lot of other stuff. The last time I did to get a custom response you had to do a separate trigger for dimming, on, off and last. Do you still have to do this or is there a way to put ini all in one trigger and including dimming limits?

They need to be separate....

[mikee123]

I am just road testing the HS beta. I have not converted my Alexa account over to HS4 yet and probably will not for a while. Will the Alexa helper work with HS4 in the future ?

[jon00]

As HS4 is built on HS3, I see no reason why not.

[mrceolla]

Hi,

I have a relatively lengthy script that sometimes reports the following error when launched via this helper:

Running script MediaControl-voice.vb :Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.->Does entry point Main exist in script? at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor) at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.UnsafeInvokeInternal(Obj ect obj, Object[] parameters, Object[] arguments) at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture) at Scheduler.clsRunVBNetScript.ExecuteScript()

This error doesn't always happen. In fact, rarely. I can issue the exact same command twice. One will fail with the above error, the 2nd attempt will succeed, so it doesn't seem to be an error in the code path.

Sometimes when the above error happens, I get the following error on all subsequent voice commands until I restart HS3.

Not running script since its already running: check_vcmd2.vb Single instance option enabled in event properties

Could this have anything to do with the length of my script? It's currently about 700 lines. Any other possibilities?

Is there anything I can do to force quite a running check_vcmd2.vb when I get this 2nd error so that I don't need to restart HS?

Thanks!

[tenholde]

The error about missing Main entry point is misleading, seen often from HS when an error occurs in a script. The real error could be anywhere in your script.

[jon00]

You really need to identify the error in your script. Make sure you have an overall Try/Catch/End Try and ensure that catched errors still return something from your function.

[mrceolla]

Thank you for your replies. I will proceed with adding try/catch/end and further debugging my script. I'm just puzzled that the exact same command (which are input parameters to the script) can first fail and then succeed immediately after. Stranger things have happened I suppose. Thanks again!

[avpman]

Any chance this can or will be modified/updated to not require "Ask Homeseer to...?" I need this script in order to run events via Alexa. Trying to teach the spouse when to use "Ask Homeseer..." for this functionality and not required for device control would be a non-starter.

Also, will it work on a Zee2 (it's a PI3B)?

Thanks for the great work!

[jon00]

No, you have to use the "Ask Homeseer" skill to push the text spoken to Homeseer.

Yes it will work on any flavor of Homeseer.

[Jack Guydish]

Anyone able to get a light to dim using Set CAPI Value (from parsed #)? I get the proper response and the log shows the correct number parsed but no CAPI command issued.
I've tried 10,+10,+90 as well as 10,+10,+90,dim as well as 10,+10,+90,brightness (saw a previous post suggesting using dim or brightness at the end. The light dimmer works with the native Tell Homeseer command outside of the jon00 Alexa helper so I'm sure I'm entering something incorrectly. Triggers for on / off commands work fine (using the CAPI Control field). Log shows:

Jon00_Alexa

Script processing time: 544 ms

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Response sent to Alexa: 'OK. Setting Breakfast Nook Light.'

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Successful trigger under [Trigger3]

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Integer Parsed (from string): 50

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Alexa Number String: fifty

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Parsed Date & Time (hour/min Extraction):

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Alexa Source: 'Amazon'

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Alexa Device Name: 'Undefined'

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Alexa Device ID: deleted this

Apr-29 6:40:19 PM

Jon00_Alexa

Alexa command heard: 'dim breakfast light to fifty percent'