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In case you haven't heard yet...we have released a really really cool, simple yet extremely powerful driver for the Amazon Echo.

In a nutshell, it allows you to define custom keyword "triggers"...such as "kitchen", "house", "TV", "downstairs", "master blinds", etc...(you can create whatever keywords you like, other than a few words which are reserved by the Echo, such as "play", "pandora", etc.)

For each trigger that you define, you can program any control4 activities to take place (activate a lighting scene, raise blinds, turn on TV to specific channel, etc...anything that can be controlled via your control4 system based on whatever components you have installed).

For example...you can say "Alexa, turn on downstairs", or "Alexa, dim (or brighten) the kitchen", or "Alexa, turn off the house"... and have those commands trigger any programming that you desire in Control4.

Here are a couple videos of the driver in action:

Comet Smart Homes Video

Video 1
Video 2

 

 

As with any driver, you will need your dealer to add the driver to your project and configure it to work with your Echo(s). 

The driver can be purchased from www.epic-systems.com

Thanks!

-Ari

 
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EDIT - see youtube video in the original posting for this thread.

Robbie, sorry I've been extremely busy with the holidays etc...haven't had a chance to make a video of the driver in action yet.  I will try to make a quick one tomorrow...problem is that I have a 2-year old and a 4-year old running around the house most of the time...so its pretty rare that I find a moment of peace and quiet where I can have a nice chat with Alexa...

If anyone else who has the driver feels so inclined and has the time, feel free to post a video in the meantime!

It pretty much goes like this... "Alexa, Kitchen On" (Kitchen scene turns on...), or "Alexa, Turn On Apple TV" (Apple TV turns on, lights dim, or whatever else you've programmed for that event...), or "Alexa, turn off house" (house lights shut off, music and TV's turn off, temperature changes, etc..)

If you decide to purchase the driver and don't find it useful, I will gladly offer you a FULL REFUND.

Thanks

Ari

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I am an early adopter of the driver.  It is very easy to set up.  If you have HE, you can do everything except the actual install of the driver.

 1) Install the driver - one instance per Echo  (requires dealer/Composer Pro).  

 2) Enter the IP address of the Echo in the Properties page.

 3) Add your triggers/keywords in Properties.  Alexa will recognize these as "devices"

 4) Go to Actions and hit the "Discover Devices" button.  Alexa will tell you how many "devices" she found.

 5) There will be 4 events under programming for each device - ON, OFF, UP, DOWN.  Program the ones you want.

 

There really isn't a lot for a video to show.  I was going to make a video, but some unrelated critical problems have taken time away from finishing what I wanted to do with the driver.  I will get to it (hopefully soon) because some of the things I plan to do with the driver involve more than turning lights on and off and will probably look cool in a video.

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JFH, that would be great. i had a few issues with setting up mine. Ari has been great in regards to his communication with me about fixing the issue. My Echo does seem to want to take the static IP per the documentation. but i too and trying to do some pretty HOT things with my Echo. would love to see what you come up with!

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1 hour ago, Vandy said:

I dont have a Roomba but i can tell Alexa to vacuum the house and have that trigger an event that texts my wife and tells her to clean:)

I'll bet that event doesn't get the desired response ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

You can set any trigger word(s) you like.  However, anything reserved by the Echo as a trigger (I.e. Goodnight) will not get passed to Control4 and you may have to do voice training with the Echo to improve recognition.

 

Add a trigger to the driver and run discover.  Then try <trigger> ON (or OFF/UP/DOWN) or a variation of it.  If it's processed by the C4 driver, Alexa will say "Okay".   Try saying it few ways and a few times if your first attempt doesn't work.  You will find words that just flat out aren't recognized by Alexa as names for lights.   I could never get "Arcade" recognized, but "Arcade Lights" work fine.

to save yourself A LOT OF TIME - figure out which keywords work best for you AND THEN do your event programming.

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FYI - you can use any groups defined for the Echo and they will fire all the events for the group.  You can't do any specific programming against a group (because the driver doesn't know the group name).

 

It's not terribly reliable - don't know if that is an Echo problem or a driver issue.  I have a group called "Upstairs" than consists of 4 triggers/devices.   Sometimes C4 does all 4, sometimes 3, can't really see a pattern yet.   But saying Alexa, turn upstairs off a few times can still be the fastest way to do it.

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JFH: Can that issue be solved by having the Echo trigger a C4 macro (one event) and then within that macro have it turn off all 4 devices for you?   I just ordered my echo and the driver so I haven't played around with it yet so I'm just speculating.  Trying to get a head start on troubleshooting....

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19 minutes ago, Brent87 said:

JFH: Can that issue be solved by having the Echo trigger a C4 macro (one event) and then within that macro have it turn off all 4 devices for you?   I just ordered my echo and the driver so I haven't played around with it yet so I'm just speculating.  Trying to get a head start on troubleshooting....

Sure, because you have full control over the events in the macro and can add additional timing, conditions, etc.. But the purpose of using the group in the first place was to not requiring an additional trigger to be defined to the driver/Echo.  I am very close to the 30 trigger limit and wanted to see if I could get around that to some extent by using groups.  

Perhaps Ari can weigh in here, but I suspect it's a timing thing with rapid fire requests coming from the Echo (if there are 6 items in the group, Echo sends 6 event triggers to the driver).  Maybe there needs to be a delay (200ms?) added after each trigger is processed?  I have noticed in other programming that there are cases when adding in a small delay between commands prevents similar problems.

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