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    #16
    Any update on this?

    What I'd like to be able to do:
    A Homeseer event runs and then tells Alexa to make an announcement, to either all or some of the Echo's/Dots>

    With no input from me Alexa would say:
    "The time is 8:30p and your garage door is open"

    Comment


      #17
      Originally posted by CinBRandon View Post
      Any update on this?

      What I'd like to be able to do:
      A Homeseer event runs and then tells Alexa to make an announcement, to either all or some of the Echo's/Dots>

      With no input from me Alexa would say:
      "The time is 8:30p and your garage door is open"
      Amazon doesn't provide this capability. Unless and until Amazon makes this possible, it is not going to happen.
      HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

      Comment


        #18
        This is allowed now with the announce now command right? Can we get this working somehow. I use Echo's extensively in the house now and really would like to send speech to them like I used to with my sonos system.

        Comment


          #19
          The announcement only accepts voice and plays the recorded voice snippet. You cannot send this programmatically. The solution I am using is using the Simon says functionality where she repeats what she supposedly heard but this is one that can be done programmatically.

          Comment


            #20
            I use the same solution that others like openhab
            ​​​​​use for announcements. Search for Alexa TTS in this forum for details on how to set this up. It won't however listen for a response. But you could have Alexa all if someone is using the space and have a routine called "yes I am using this room" which triggers a virtual switch, you can then have someone respond by saying Alexa yes I am using this room which triggers the virtual switch and you can then have your event only turn everything off if the switch is not turned on, but then have it switch off the switch until you next ask the question.

            I however would find being asked annoying. I use a combination of factors to determine occupancy of a room. Motion sensors and pressure pad sensors in doorway and under sofa cushions.

            I can count people into and out of a room based on if the rooms motion sensor is fired before the door pressure sensor or not. However it's not 100% infallible so I have a catch all that if the sofa pressure pads and motion have not been triggered for 1 hour then do the action to turn off anyway and reset the person counter to 0. But I announce I will turn them off in 60 seconds. I have a virtual switch in every room called the room name manual. E.g. if someone says alexa turn on living room manual at that point all automation in that room will stop for a period of 2.5 hours and will prevent the TV being turned off.

            It rarely happens though that the person counter fails to correctly count in or out people. The time it will fail is when there are lots of people in a room who are triggering the motion sensor while someone enters or leaves.

            This is logically how I handle the occupancy and control in all my main communal rooms. That way your not constantly being asked if the room is in use. My wife hates the computerised Voice, so I only use when necessary.

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              #21
              Originally posted by fuzzysb View Post
              The announcement only accepts voice and plays the recorded voice snippet. You cannot send this programmatically. The solution I am using is using the Simon says functionality where she repeats what she supposedly heard but this is one that can be done programmatically.
              Whilst it is a fudge, you can use the announcement feature using a DOT and a USB speaker in an enclosed box. See images below. I just assigned a separate Speaker Client to the speakers and you can get Homeseer to control Alexa in the same way as your voice. With the Announce feature, you hear the Speaker Clients TTS. Homeseer can also control things via Alexa not directly integrated with HS3.

              Click image for larger version

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              Jon

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                #22
                It's definateky a bit overkill that... But as i said you don't need that kind of solution anymore for TTS only, see the thread below for setup instructions. The control of items that HS3 doesn't have I have now overcome. The last of my devices that I had no control of was MagicHome v4 RGB strips. But I've now written a plugin so I have HS3 communicating now directly with everything.
                just as a FYI, i have got this working directly from a windows 10 machine without the need for other machines/apps by installing the Windows Feature "Windows

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                  #23
                  If you are more conftable with mqtt. You can also use this node-red package https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-...-alexa-remote2

                  I thinkd it is based on the npm proposed here.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Originally posted by rprade View Post
                    Amazon doesn't provide this capability. Unless and until Amazon makes this possible, it is not going to happen.
                    Actually Alexa does allow devices to do speech. My Ring Pro app does this quite well. There are other devices that can do it as well including to my understanding Smartthings.

                    You don't even have to create a routine in Alexa but if you don't, at least with the Ring app, you can only speak through one Echo. If you want to speak through multiple Echos, at least with the Ring app, you have to create a routing for each Echo you have. Right now I don't know if this is an Alexa or Ring app limitation.

                    Not only can you do Speech you can do lots of other things. You can drive other devices from the Alexa routine. So you can send a command to Alexa with a parameter which will allow to to trigger any Alexa routine.

                    What I would like to hear from HS is have they studied how this is done and what we'll we be able to do once they updated the HS3 Smart Home app. I think they should ask for feedback from the users.
                    HomeSeer Version: HS3 Standard Edition 3.0.0.548
                    Linux version: Linux auto 4.15.0-72-generic #81-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 26 12:20:02 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
                    Number of Devices: 484 | Number of Events: 776

                    Enabled Plug-Ins: 3.0.0.13: AirplaySpeak | 2.0.61.0: BLBackup
                    3.0.0.70: EasyTrigger | 1.3.7006.42100: LiftMaster MyQ
                    4.2.3.0: mcsMQTT | 3.0.0.53: PHLocation2 | 0.0.0.47: Pushover 3P
                    3.0.0.16: RaspberryIO | 3.0.1.262: Z-Wave

                    Z-Net version: 1.0.23 for Inclusion Nodes
                    SmartStick+: 6.04 (ZDK 6.81.3) on Server

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Originally posted by CinBRandon View Post
                      Any update on this?

                      What I'd like to be able to do:
                      A Homeseer event runs and then tells Alexa to make an announcement, to either all or some of the Echo's/Dots>

                      With no input from me Alexa would say:
                      "The time is 8:30p and your garage door is open"
                      Originally posted by rprade View Post
                      Amazon doesn't provide this capability. Unless and until Amazon makes this possible, it is not going to happen.
                      Originally posted by Timon View Post

                      Actually Alexa does allow devices to do speech. My Ring Pro app does this quite well. There are other devices that can do it as well including to my understanding Smartthings.

                      You don't even have to create a routine in Alexa but if you don't, at least with the Ring app, you can only speak through one Echo. If you want to speak through multiple Echos, at least with the Ring app, you have to create a routing for each Echo you have. Right now I don't know if this is an Alexa or Ring app limitation.

                      Not only can you do Speech you can do lots of other things. You can drive other devices from the Alexa routine. So you can send a command to Alexa with a parameter which will allow to to trigger any Alexa routine.

                      What I would like to hear from HS is have they studied how this is done and what we'll we be able to do once they updated the HS3 Smart Home app. I think they should ask for feedback from the users.
                      Yes, but you are replying to a post I made almost 8 months ago. When I wrote that in April, I think it was not even possible to do what you are describing. It is still not possible to do what Chad was asking for.

                      I believe it is on the roadmap, but with no ETA.
                      HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Originally posted by rprade View Post


                        Yes, but you are replying to a post I made almost 8 months ago. When I wrote that in April, I think it was not even possible to do what you are describing. It is still not possible to do what Chad was asking for.

                        I believe it is on the roadmap, but with no ETA.
                        Sorry, It's been one of those days.
                        HomeSeer Version: HS3 Standard Edition 3.0.0.548
                        Linux version: Linux auto 4.15.0-72-generic #81-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 26 12:20:02 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
                        Number of Devices: 484 | Number of Events: 776

                        Enabled Plug-Ins: 3.0.0.13: AirplaySpeak | 2.0.61.0: BLBackup
                        3.0.0.70: EasyTrigger | 1.3.7006.42100: LiftMaster MyQ
                        4.2.3.0: mcsMQTT | 3.0.0.53: PHLocation2 | 0.0.0.47: Pushover 3P
                        3.0.0.16: RaspberryIO | 3.0.1.262: Z-Wave

                        Z-Net version: 1.0.23 for Inclusion Nodes
                        SmartStick+: 6.04 (ZDK 6.81.3) on Server

                        Comment


                          #27
                          <<Right now I don't know if this is an Alexa or Ring app limitation.>>

                          I think it's an Alexa issue that has to do with multi-device buffering and syncing. Basically what would happen if you tried it now would be that each Alexa device would start speaking the message at different times rather than in perfect sync. The message needs to be buffered to each device and then played at the same nanosecond. Else you're going to have an annoying echo type sound through the house, like when 2 TVs are on in different rooms and the cable boxes get slightly out of sync.

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Originally posted by CinBRandon View Post
                            Any update on this?

                            What I'd like to be able to do:
                            A Homeseer event runs and then tells Alexa to make an announcement, to either all or some of the Echo's/Dots>

                            With no input from me Alexa would say:
                            "The time is 8:30p and your garage door is open"
                            Actually this is possible to do now with HomeSeer if you also have a SmartThings hub. You will need to add these 2 SmartApps (they are free) to your SmartThings account if you don't already have them:

                            Echo Speaks
                            webCORE

                            For information about the Echo Speaks app and how to install it, follow this link: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index...le=Echo_Speaks
                            For a how-to on installing webCORE, follow this video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ElUwmmI6Y

                            In short, Echo Speaks visibly links all your Alexa devices to your SmartThings account, while webCORE is a third-party app that allows you to create events with complex rules for SmartThings. WebCORE is extremely powerful and very easy to use once you learn your way around. It allows "If, Then, Else Then" statements, multiple conditions and triggers. Rather than "Events", webCORE calls theirs "Pistons".

                            To announce the garage door is still open at 8:30pm with TTS (text to speech) we only need a very simple Piston, and with webCORE you can skip the "If" condition for what we are doing. Here is how the Piston will look in webCORE when you set it up:

                            Click image for larger version  Name:	piston.png Views:	2 Size:	36.5 KB ID:	1266872

                            Next save the Piston and exit to the Piston status page. Here you'll find a link that will generate an external URL that you can call to run the Piston remotely:

                            Click image for larger version  Name:	externalURL.png Views:	1 Size:	473.7 KB ID:	1266873

                            Copy the URL from the new window that opens. (Your announcement should also play at this point.)

                            Next we'll go to Homeseer and create an event using an immediate script command that will call the external URL using the URL Action script:

                            Click image for larger version  Name:	hs3event.png Views:	1 Size:	44.4 KB ID:	1266874

                            Be sure to wrap your webCORE external URL in quotes (and note the webCORE URL should end with a colon : ).

                            That's it! Using these few simple steps you can set up all sorts of Alexa announcements that trigger from Homeseer events.

                            I also use a similar procedure with JSON to control and monitor all sorts of Zigbee switches and sensors from Homeseer that SmartThings supports but HS3 doesn't. Using webCORE as a bridge, this gives 2 way communication between SmartThings and HS3. Works great and execution is near instantaneous. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of integrations that SmartThings supports that HS3 does not. With webCORE and JSON you can bridge the gap and keep using Homeseer as the "homebase" platform.

                            Enjoy!

                            --Barry

                            Comment


                              #29
                              The webcore approach is nice. Is it possible to pass the text as a variable and only create one piston that says whatever is sent to it?

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Originally posted by simonmason View Post
                                The webcore approach is nice. Is it possible to pass the text as a variable and only create one piston that says whatever is sent to it?
                                i've wondered about that but never dug into it. I think you'd probably have to pass the text as a file to dropbox and have webCORE grab it from there. You'd probably introduce a lot of latency by going that route. I'll dig into a little and see what's possible. The procedure I laid out above is something I came up with in about 5 minutes late at night, so I'm sure it can be improved upon.

                                --Barry

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