Amazon Echo to HA Controllers

[pete_c]

Yeah; here just testing functionality of the emulator....going really slow with it....optimistic...looking good...
 
Homeseer talks X10, UPB and Z-Wave right now.
 
Lighting switches are all UPB. I am okey dokey using the Amazon to control my UPB lighting. 
 
I don't really do much relating to remote control.    JK...don't get frustrated...you will get it going shortly.
 
I was not aware of any limits until you guys mentioned it just now.

 

[jkmonroe]

I can tell you that with the Hue bridge itself, it found all of my lights, and all of my lights are listed in the Echo app, but most are 'offline'.  I guess I can go through and count the ones that are online to see if it correlates in any way with the limit.
 
It has 27 bulbs listed, 10 are working, and 17 are listed as offline.  Which seems random.

 

[pete_c]

Yeah odd.
 
all of my lights are listed in the Echo app, but most are 'offline'.
 
Doesn't make sense to me as I thought the discovery only related to live stuff (well with the emulator).

 

[jkmonroe]

yeah, i am under the impression that Echo finds my local Hue bridge, and grabs the devices directly.  sort of an either/or thing, you can talk to the bridge and all of my lights are available, or you cannot talk to the bridge and none of the lights are available.
 
i have verified that the offline is wholly random, and not connected to their reachability in the bridge.

 

[wuench]

Have you tried deleting all your devices in the app before each discovery?   So far the only pattern I have noted is that the offline devices are from a previous discovery.    The Java simulator makes up the device UUIDs, and I am not sure if it is consistent between discoveries or not.  The hue bridge will obviously use real ones.  So if you are moving between the two or doing multiple discoveries in the java simulator you may get different device UUIDs for each device, duplicates, etc.

 

[jkmonroe]

Yes.  I have told the Echo to 'forget connected home devices' and have rescanned.  Similar results, and it's random, so not the same bulbs, and not the same number of bulbs.
 
There is definitely something wonky.  I am going to try to hook up the second Echo and see if it has any better results.

 

[Dean Roddey]

I've got a couple of them now (thanks to some generous customer donations.) Though, it turns out that you need some wifi enabled device in order to set them up to talk to your wifi network, which I don't have. Luckly another customer has a Surface Pro 3 that he got for his wife but she never used, so made me a deal that even I could afford. So, once that gets here, I can start working on something official.

I'm assuming it will be done like IR, RF, serial, IP, etc... trigger drivers, where you just train CQC to react to incoming msgs. But we'll see if that's practical or not.

 

[pete_c]

Though, it turns out that you need some wifi enabled device in order to set them up to talk to your wifi network, which I don't have.

 
Here I just utilized my Ubuntu laptop rather than my cell phone.  I kept my laptop connected to the wired network.  Once the Amazon is in setup mode you connect your wireless piece to it while concurrently using the Amazon Echo configuration page on Amazon. Takes a minute to configure the Amazon Echo.  You do it all via the Amazon Echo Web site and enabling the Echo to set up mode.  Takes 5 minutes to do this.
 
Any laptop whether Wintel or Linux with a wired / wireless interface should suffice.
 
Here have gone off on a bit of a tangent building a new AP using an Intel Atom based touchscreen just made for the Amazon Echo.
 
Here have connected the Echo to the Securifi Almond + APs, DD-WRT APs , microrouter AP and the PFSense router configured as an AP.  Wanting to get a bit more granular decided rather to build a new AP.
 
Base here is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 32 bit.  The Java emulator runs great on it.  I find also that Java runs way faster on Linux than Windows these days.
 
The tabletop capacitance touchscreen tablet also has a zigbee and dect radio in it.
 
Looked to install DD-WRT on it and found an easy OpenWRT installation for it instead. 
 
Runs way faster than the little microrouter stuff.

 

[ChrisCicc]

I've got a couple of them now (thanks to some generous customer donations.) Though, it turns out that you need some wifi enabled device in order to set them up to talk to your wifi network, which I don't have. Luckly another customer has a Surface Pro 3 that he got for his wife but she never used, so made me a deal that even I could afford. So, once that gets here, I can start working on something official.

I'm assuming it will be done like IR, RF, serial, IP, etc... trigger drivers, where you just train CQC to react to incoming msgs. But we'll see if that's practical or not.

 
Dean - runtime discovery of CQC is not possible in the current ASK. These guys are hacking a one off for their custom systems, but if you are looking to have something deployable to your customers, we're in the same boat... 

 

[pete_c]

Just noticed the newest jar file (echo bridge) version from Obi Wan software person ArmZilla is looking way different than earlier version. 
 
Now includes Harmony support.  The GUI has been cleaned up a bit and saves all of the settings now.
 
Testing it here on my new AP ...it's a bit fatter than earlier version but runs using less CPU.
 
amazon-echo-bridge-0.2.0.jar
 
earlier version:
 
amazon-echo-bridge-0.1.3.jar
 
The OpenHab OmniPro II binding worked just fine with the OPII a while ago. 
 
You can just run the HAI OPII binding today on a RPi2 and also run the Amazon Echo bridge for easy peasy automation.
 
Personally here have not tried running OpenHab yet on an RPi2.  Initially I did find it way fast running on Linux.
 

hxxp://user:[email protected]:8080/CMD?light_garage=ON

 

[pete_c]

Added three bridges today on 3 boxes.
 
1 - Homeseer on RPi2 - talking Zwave mostly - not hitting CPU too much now - 12.4% (Homeseer total CPU is at 25%)
2 - Homeseer on Ubuntu - talking UPB and creating some virtual devices here -  CPU here at 4.7% (Homeseer is at 18.2%)
3 - Atom touchscreen tablet - to play with
 
Adding devices slowly here.
 
Created a virtual device to trigger some TTS stuff relating to reading status of a sensor.  Works great.
 
Created another virtual device to play an internet stream via a remote push button event on one touch screen.
 
Is there anyway to get rid of the "Hue Light" under the devices?

 

[pete_c]

Alexa saids July better than any of the Microsoft SAPI english voice fonts I have which say something that doesn't even sound like July.  (well it appears to be adding a piece to it that sounds a bit like July ah).
 
I have historically tweaked it (SAPI) but do not bother these days.
 
I am liking that I can tell my touchscreens to change screens, push buttons (and run scripts locally) and display whatever.

 

[wkearney99]

Heh, I always get a laugh when TTS systems try to pronounce the name of "chihuahua" (the little yappy dogs).  Apple's TTS system would say "chee who a who a"

 

[pvrfan]

Heh, I always get a laugh when TTS systems try to pronounce the name of "chihuahua" (the little yappy dogs).  Apple's TTS system would say "chee who a who a"

 
OS X 10.6.8 "Speech" says CHEE-wah-wah.
 
Craig

 

[pete_c]

Yup at present only have AT&T, Loquendo and Neopeech SAPI 32 bit fonts to play with / listen to. 
 
First home automation TTS was using AT&T SAPI fonts on an overlocked AMD (700Mhz) with 512Mb of memory. 
 
The speech engines on the variety of OS's has evolved mostly relating to the faster CPUs / more memory and most of the time making them sound better.