Amazon Echo / Alexa

[kevin1]

Anyone using an Amazon Echo?  We have one coming later this week.  Plan to use it in our kitchen/dining area; and it's near our main entry, so it would be awesome to integrate with HG :-)  Ideas.... "Alexa, turn on all the lights"  "Alexa, turn on the alarm" "Alexa, are all the doors closed"

Developer info here:  https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa

Could HG be the web server for adding skills to the Amazon Echo?  There is a .net example here...
http://forums.developer.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=5895&tstart=0

[Fmstrat]

I have considered playing with this as well, especially with them on sale for $150 right now. It's looking like you would need to run your own localized server that had direct access to your HG system for this to work well.

Theoretically, the HG team "could" host a server that was used by the community, but it's not really the model for HG since it's a self-hosted open source project. A more likely scenario would be you set up your own Echo dev api and host your own server, and a guide is posted on the HG site/forum. That's similar to when I added in SSL support to the Android app and a guide for Nginx.

If I do pick up an Echo, I will be going down this road and will document things. However, it's highly unlikely I'll be doing it now, despite the sale, just due to time constraints.

[Fmstrat]

As a note, when investigating Echo, I also investigated Jasper: http://jasperproject.github.io/

Jasper seems like a more HG friendly method, since it's OS like HG.

[kevin1]

if you are in US, you can get echo for around $120 and 'bad bath and beyond' with their regular store wide coupons.

[kevin1]

I haven't tried this yet, but ifttt.com has these two channels which might combine to get some functionality
1- Alexa (https://ifttt.com/amazon_alexa): Say a specific phrase
2- Maker (https://ifttt.com/maker): Make a web request

So, "Alexa, trigger lights on" could call http://<IP>/api/HomeAutomation.X10/A1/Control.On

Not sure of latency, I've seen comments say 5 seconds to 15 minutes 

[kevin1]

This works!  It takes only a couple seconds in my testing so far.  I haven't gotten elaborate with various names for lights yet so I don't know how well "she" will do with multiple light names 

[kevin1]

update.... I now have several lights and an electric fireplace all running through HG and Alexa. it works great parsing the similar verbal commands I speak.   I sometimes get a 5-15 second delay on the fireplace for some reason, others seem to react in 0-5 seconds.  also can arm the alarm and disarm by speaking a 4 digit number to Alexa(like "Alexa trigger alarm 1234"), then she calls the webapi to disarm.

only downside so far is that I have to create a new ifttt recipe for each command.... one for on, one for off, for each device.  ifttt is relatively easy to create each and paste in the webapi url, then tweak it for each.

[kevin1]

FYI, Amazon Alexa service for Rasberry Pi 2/3 is officially available from Amazon now... https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi

[nolio]

Hi,
Nice !
You use the opensource project or the real amazon echo ?

Bye

[kevin1]

I have been using the real Amazon echo for about 6 months. Haven't tried the Alexa on pi

[nolio]

Ok, and how did you use it ?
Interaction only with homegenie ? Or with other system ?
What did amazon echo control in homegenie ?

Install on raspberry seems to be very long...

[kevin1]

We use Echo mostly for various advertised/popular features: music (pandora), weather, sports scores, jokes (they are usually funny), random wikipedia fact checks during dinner.  Obviously all things that could be done with a mobile phone.  It just works great sitting between our kitchen and living room, never have to touch it like siri, ok google or other apps on phone.

For HomeGenie integration I am still using IFTTT.  The Echo-IFTTT-HG works great from what I observe.  I have been having serious zwave issues/delays that happen regardless of using Echo or HG app/website that has made the whole smart home frustrating for me and family though.  The IFTTT method requires setting up each phrase manually as noted earlier in thread.

Currently I have on/off commands for each of 3 zwave wall light switches, on/off for fake fireplace with a zwave plugin switch, security system arm/disarm (not really using this but it works).

Would like to do but either can't or haven't set up yet:
-"alexa trigger furnace off/on/up/down" - should be easy
-"alexa trigger dinner time" - toggle basement light three times at 1Hz to alert my son (based on my zwave delays there is no way this is gonna work)
-"alexa trigger movie time" - set basement dimmer, turn on tv/etc (currently have no way to turn on tv, though thought about another arduino with IR Tx)
-"alexa trigger bed time" and she responds "all doors secured" - there is no way to make her speak phrases

[leonowski]

Hello,

I just wanted to chime in on how I use Echo with homegenie.  I use software called "ha-bridge" available here:

https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge

HA bridge allows you to use Echo by emulating a Philips Hue Hub.  After you get the ha-server running, it is a simple matter of the Echo discovering the device.

To integrate it with homegenie, you simply configure the ha-bridge with the homegenie API endpoints.  A screenshot of that looks like this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47573266/habridge.png

This way, you don't have to rely on an external service like IFTTT.  Also, it is very fast.

[HGexperimenter]

I use FAUXMO that runs on the Raspberry Pi and it is small and works to interface the Amazon Echo to HomeGenie using API commands.

Here's the github link:
https://github.com/makermusings/fauxmo

It runs as a fake WeMo and calls an API for on/off.

[glitch007]

https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge
A screenshot of that looks like this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47573266/habridge.png
This way, you don't have to rely on an external service like IFTTT.  Also, it is very fast.

Thanks so much for this, I was able to get this working on my setup!