Homeseer announcements (TTS) through Alexa. aka: You don't need IFTTT anymore.

[Timon]

Alexa seems to have been updated so it will speak announcements in real time. All ring cameras and doorbells can now sent motion and button alerts through the Alexa app. Not only will Alexa speak that motion or a ring has been detected (even with your own text) you can trigger scenes and other action through routines.

I'm no longer triggering my motion and doorbell events using ring through Alexa and no longer using IFTTT. It also seems to be much quicker.

I'm wondering if HS is aware of this and is finding out what they need to do so we can send TTS through Alexa?

[The Profit]

Alexa seems to have been updated so it will speak announcements in real time. All ring cameras and doorbells can now sent motion and button alerts through the Alexa app. Not only will Alexa speak that motion or a ring has been detected (even with your own text) you can trigger scenes and other action through routines.

I'm no longer triggering my motion and doorbell events using ring through Alexa and no longer using IFTTT. It also seems to be much quicker.

I'm wondering if HS is aware of this and is finding out what they need to do so we can send TTS through Alexa?

That would be great!


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[Fellhahn]

Ooh exciting if true. So ring is the only skill that can send TTS at the moment?

[upstatemike]

Ooh exciting if true. So ring is the only skill that can send TTS at the moment?

The ISY994 can do this also...

Don't you wish your house could talk to you? Now It Can!

Do you know what your house is doing? Well, now, you can! Through Amazon Echo/Alexa, now your ISY can literally tell you about a wide variety of events/things in your house. For instance: Garage door is left open, pool pump is still on, water/gas leak, the kids are still awake after 10:00 PM, someone is in your backyard after 9:00 PM, …. Getting Started You need an my.isy.io account with either active or trial license Follow the instructions in our Wiki to get your Alexa Routines tied into ISY framework Follow the discussion on our forum Contest for Geeks! Enter our "Do you know what your house is doing" contest for a 6 months extension of your ISY Portal Subscription. All you need to do is: Submit your video of how our magnificent technology is letting your house tell you what it's doing Agree to share it with the public The authors of up to 200 most innovative, imaginative, or otherwise geeky videos will be awarded the ISY Portal Subscription extension. Deadline for submission is 12/01/2018. Let's Go! Now let's take your home to where no home has gone before!

[simplextech]

I had been pondering getting an ISY for testing/comparison. Maybe this will be the reason to do that.

[The Profit]

The ISY994 can do this also...

Don't you wish your house could talk to you? Now It Can!

Do you know what your house is doing? Well, now, you can! Through Amazon Echo/Alexa, now your ISY can literally tell you about a wide variety of events/things in your house. For instance: Garage door is left open, pool pump is still on, water/gas leak, the kids are still awake after 10:00 PM, someone is in your backyard after 9:00 PM, …. Getting Started You need an my.isy.io account with either active or trial license Follow the instructions in our Wiki to get your Alexa Routines tied into ISY framework Follow the discussion on our forum Contest for Geeks! Enter our "Do you know what your house is doing" contest for a 6 months extension of your ISY Portal Subscription. All you need to do is: Submit your video of how our magnificent technology is letting your house tell you what it's doing Agree to share it with the public The authors of up to 200 most innovative, imaginative, or otherwise geeky videos will be awarded the ISY Portal Subscription extension. Deadline for submission is 12/01/2018. Let's Go! Now let's take your home to where no home has gone before!

Is this something that I could trigger from HS? It looks like it triggers just from Alexa routines?


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[Timon]

From what I can tell HS needs to provide a Alexa device driver so it can send triggers to Alexa. Once that’s done that device driver can send both a direct TTS string, from what I can tell only to a single Alexa at this time, and or trigger an Alexa routine. However, currently it takes one routine per Alexa you want to speak.

Although i I have a Amazon developer account and will try to find more I’ve not very quick at finding stuff in the huge amount of documentation they have.

[Timon]

Sometimes you just get lucky. I found this announcement which I think covers this ability. I’m not sure as I still studying it.

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/a...ome-developers

[Fellhahn]

So now, with the appropriately configured smart home skill or connected Zigbee sensor, a customer can ask, "Alexa, is the master bedroom window open?" and Alexa will respond with its status.

I like the sound of this, would be nice to check if I left the downstairs light on etc.

[Fellhahn]

Once that’s done that device driver can send both a direct TTS string, from what I can tell only to a single Alexa at this time

Where did you read this? Somewhere deeper in their dev documentation I'm guessing?

I've gone over the linked article, triggering an Alexa Routine with a saved announcement seems simple enough. But being able to configure it all from within HS would of course be great.

[Timon]

That was from how the Ring works. The driver has the ability to directly speak but controlling to which Echo is a crapshoot. The rest is how the Routines function.

Ill try try to post some photos in the morning.

[Fellhahn]

This explains the following in the Alexa app:










If a try to create a new routine, and select "Device" as the trigger type, no supported devices are found. I have several lights/switches from HomeSeer that are controllable from Alexa, but of course the reverse hasn't been possible until now.

So I guess this a difference of push vs poll, or unilateral vs bilateral communication. Up to now, Alexa has been able to push commands down to HomeSeer and other hubs in order to turn on lights. And it's been able to poll those hubs for a list of available devices.

Now the hubs will be able to push status changes up to Alexa, and as Timon said that will remove the need for IFTTT.

rjh Any early thoughts on how this might integrate with HS3 virtual devices? We have the voice check box now, will another checkbox be required that enables or disables state pushes to Alexa? How different does this look to the IFTTT feature when that was added in the past?

[Timon]

When I choose device and get the third page I have my Ring camera. Once HS updates the SmartHome app then HS3 should show up.

Also part if this update you’ll be able to read back device status and read temps. It really looks like a lot of features have been added to Alexa.

Now I'll just have to wait till HS can upgrade the SmartHome app. HS, can you give us any updates?

[Timon]

Here are a few screens that show how this is done.

First is the device settings for my Ring Pro. From here you can have it announce doorbell and motion alerts however you can't select which Echo device it's going to. I see that as a serious bug but I'm going to try and fine out if it is or Ring just didn't set up the device correctly. I think that the device type will be HUB for HS3 once MyHS is setup to handle this.

Next screen shows where you add and edit routines to use devices. The reason there are two for motion is so I can send notification to the other two Echos that I couldn't select when I created the device. I'm gong to change this to three routines and turn off the announcements in the device since I have no idea if they could change in the future. I'm going to try and find out why you can't do multiple echo selects in routines.

This routine does two function, send an alert to HS3 and announce on an Echo that motion has happened. Things I read on this screen lead me to think that the routine is running as if it was actually running on that Echo. Again questions that can only be answered by Amazon.

This screen is much like the previous one except it only speaks. Again this is nuts that you can have all Echos do this from the same routine.

[Fatlab]

In the UK my Ring devices are not showing an 'Announce' section or triggers in the Alexa app. Saying that I only have a Ring v1 doorbell and two Stick up cameras so I don't know if its a device capability thing or the UK Alexa framework lagging behind the US framework.