Connected ! Now How do I...?

[rmasonjr]

Yes as I said "you should load the skill as well " ...

Rupp, that is not how the skill works. You cannot say "Alexa run the {event name}"

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[Rupp]

Rupp, that is not how the skill works. You cannot say "Alexa run the {event name}"

Sent from my SM-G935U using Tapatalk

Sorry your correct I was saying Alexa, Tell HomeSeer to Run the Event {Turn all lights off}" and didn't even realize I was saying Tell HomeSeer. It's ingrained to say that I guess.

[rsisson]

Not sure what the "skill" will get me I don't already have.

I try to keep my content in the cloud really simple, and leave the heavy lifting to HS3. Alexa makes far more mistakes than HS3 does when listening, so I will keep it simple to

Alexa turn <Device> [on/off]
That virtual device can trigger al sorts of things on the HS3 side. Once you start Asking Alexa to Tell HomeSeer to run (event name) there is a MUCH higher chance of mis-hearing things... I will keep it simple.

I come from the HS2 world where we did everything with virtual devices and scripts... (Still have that house for 2 more months) So groups are confusing, especially when I can have them in multiple places...

Scenes...I know how to do those, again with virtual devices..."turn on Move nite" or "turn on Bed time" are easy, and more importantly easy to debug... I only have to look in one place...

Unless the "Skill" does something that I can't already do... I will do it the old, brute force, ugly, long winded, HS2 way...

What trips me up, is that there are so many interactions, it may seem obvious to you all, but "enable voice commands" to a HS2 guy means something different... I had no idea that's how you made "devices" visible to Alexa... NOW it makes sense....

[waynehead99]

Not sure what the "skill" will get me I don't already have.

I try to keep my content in the cloud really simple, and leave the heavy lifting to HS3. Alexa makes far more mistakes than HS3 does when listening, so I will keep it simple to

Alexa turn <Device> [on/off]
That virtual device can trigger al sorts of things on the HS3 side. Once you start Asking Alexa to Tell HomeSeer to run (event name) there is a MUCH higher chance of mis-hearing things... I will keep it simple.

I come from the HS2 world where we did everything with virtual devices and scripts... (Still have that house for 2 more months) So groups are confusing, especially when I can have them in multiple places...

Scenes...I know how to do those, again with virtual devices..."turn on Move nite" or "turn on Bed time" are easy, and more importantly easy to debug... I only have to look in one place...

Unless the "Skill" does something that I can't already do... I will do it the old, brute force, ugly, long winded, HS2 way...

What trips me up, is that there are so many interactions, it may seem obvious to you all, but "enable voice commands" to a HS2 guy means something different... I had no idea that's how you made "devices" visible to Alexa... NOW it makes sense....

You are completely right in what you say and this was the biggest reason I stayed away from Voice Recognition for a long time. The biggest problem I always had was trying to remember what I named things or the command I had set for HS to "listen" for. I really wanted things to be easy to use and also allow for different people to say things differently but still get the same results. That is where Jon's Alexa Script Helper came into play. It allowed for me to just look at a couple trigger words, and as long as those words were said, it didn't matter what else was said. I would then parse out the data sent in a script and do the task requested. Made things so much easier, especially when you get close to 100 different commands that could be said, that is hard to keep track of and remember.

I'm not pushing one way or the other. You have some that like the API and can make it work using the Alexa groups and creating virtual devices to control things, just make sure you keep your name convention of your devices something that would be easy to say (which is another thing that kept me away from it as I have my devices named for organizing on the screen vs speaking).

The thread is long for the helper scripts, but there is a lot of info in it, I recommend checking it out. He did just recently add the ability to know which echo unit was spoken to (I haven't tried this yet as it seemed kinda kludgy and waiting for more testing to be completed). But it gives you the ability to just say "Tell Homeseer to Turn on the Lights", and it know which room you are in based off the echo that received the command and does the action for that room.

At the end of the day, if the API is doing what you want, then why change things? Just pointing out different options to explore, as I am the type that likes to learn about everything I can.

https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=184504

[YvMo]

Create a voice controlled device name "Panic". Then, on the {Alexa, turn panic on} command have hs trigger an "on" event that triggers outdoor flashing lights, turns on indoors lights, sounds an alarm, sends a sms to neiborgs (warn them beforehand). You can also create another voice activated device named "panic 1234" so that only you, with the right code (1234) can tell Alexa to {Alexa turn off panic 1234} with an "off" triggered event.

[rsisson]

I know have BOTH the API and the Skill installed

They work...

Somethings are Alexa turn {on/off} [device name]

others are Alexa run the HS event [event name]

and even more are Alexa turn [all lites] {on/off} where
[all lites] is an ALEXA group of HS devices.

Working on my IFTTT integration and making it do something useful.