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3 minutes ago, drro said:

@jfh I don't think you ever got an answer to your question, which @Anzir misunderstood.  There are workarounds to order online (http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-order-an-amazon-echo-dot-without-an-amazon-echo/). Also, you could probably use the Lexi app on iOS to order a Dot.  Both the Echo and the Dot are great, and I think you'll be very happ with either. 

Thanks, but the question wasn't mine - I was trying to answer one.

i have both Echo and Dot, but for use primarily with C4, the Dot is the way to go.

 

 

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Echo showed up today. Driver is awesome. Loving it. Will probably keep the Dot too when it comes in July. So master bedroom and Living rooms will be covered. Will I need 2nd Driver?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

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Jim is correct in that you only should have one instance of the driver in your project per Amazon account.  However, if you'd like to register each Echo/Dot device under a different Amazon account (in order for each to have its own set of trigger words for example), then you'd need to add an instance of the driver for each Amazon account.  As far as the driver licensing goes however, one license key covers all instances of the driver in your control4 project, so you don't need to make the decision based on cost.

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Fantastic.  

Any suggestions on where to discuss best practices for programming/triggers?  

I still haven't decided what is better to change volume and I'm noticing Alexa likes some words more than others.  I have preset volumes at 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 60% for the whole house (which is where I usually play Sonos).  

IE  Triggers like: Volume, Sound or Audio to raise and lower the volume.  Haven't found the one that works best yet.

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28 minutes ago, AP-123 said:

Haven't found the one that works best yet.

Are you referring to the words or the code? If you're referring to the words I found that Alexa does like certain words better than others; it also understands some people's voices better than others. So you really need to experiment and have everyone in the household try (the word "up" worked for my wife, but not me).

That said, we found "turn on" and "turn off" work well, also "raise" and "lower." Also adding "the" after the keyword (such as "turn on the") seems to enhance Alexa's understanding.of what you just said.

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Thanks Marty - trigger words and code.  I don't want to hijack the thread but would like if we could share best practices.  Here's what I'm working on:

# Trigger Event Working?
1 House Sonos On or Off Y
2 Outdoor Sonos On or Off Y
3 Fountain On or Off Y
4 Sky Light Turn up/down On/Off Y
5 Living Room Shades Turn up/down On/Off Y
6 Dining Room Shades Turn up/down On/Off Y
7 Bedroom Sonos   Not yet setup
8 Home Light On or Off Y
9 Night Light On or Off Y
10 Movie Light On or Off Y
11 Outdoor Light On or Off Y
12 All Lights On or Off Y
13 AC   Not yet setup
14 Heat   Not yet setup
15 Media Room   Not yet setup
16 Sonos Favorite Station1   Not yet setup
17 Sonos Favorite Station2   Not yet setup
18 Sonos Favorite Station3   Not yet setup
19 Sonos Favorite Station4   Not yet setup
20 Sonos Favorite Station5   Not yet setup
21 Entertain   Not yet setup
22 Vacation   Not yet setup
23 Garage Door   Not yet setup
24 Front Gate Close or Raise Does not like OPEN but close works for both
25 Spa Heater On or Off Y
26 Spa Jets On or Off Y
27 Volume 10% On Does not like Volume - try, audio, sound or music
28 Voluem 15% On Does not like Volume - try, audio, sound or music
29 Volume 20% On Does not like Volume - try, audio, sound or music
30 Volume 30% On Does not like Volume - try, audio, sound or music
       
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Can't be done! It's really not "best practices" but rather a "lifestyle" issue. Perfect example of that is "Garage Door." Since my wife and I are retired most errands we run are run together - so leaving the house ("Alexa, turn on security") not only opens the garage door for us, but also turns everything off and sets the alarm to away. Now yes, on those occasions when we leave separately it would be nice to have Alexa open the garage door, but we've found other priorities instead. Pretty much the same for vacation (and we take a lot of those) - it's just as easy to have a custom button in the app. You'll be amazed at how fast you can fill up the 30 slots - and how often you find you need to add, change, or delete a command because you've found something better.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, drro said:

Has anyone tried to program voice commands for DVR pause and play?  If so, would you please share programming?

Anything you can do within ComposerHE (or Pro if you’re a dealer) can be voice activated. In this case first select the Amazon Echo Event on the left, then on the right select the room, highlight Commands, then select Play or Pause (whichever is appropriate).

 

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@jfh I don't think you ever got an answer to your question, which @Anzir misunderstood.  There are workarounds to order online (http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-order-an-amazon-echo-dot-without-an-amazon-echo/). Also, you could probably use the Lexi app on iOS to order a Dot.  Both the Echo and the Dot are great, and I think you'll be very happ with either. 

Perfect, just ordered 2 Dots. Backordered until 7/26...

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Just bought the driver. Incredibly simple to set-up and program. Makes my C4 system "more fun" to use for commonly used macros or scenes.

Things I learned along the way - not that interesting - but still trying to give back where I can:

Name your events after natural language. For example, mine was called "AppleTV" ("Alexa - turn on Apple TV") because that was the device name. Echo would fail to recognize it 4/5 times. I changed it to "Apple <space> TV" and it works every time without fail - tested 5/5 for an ON and OFF event.

I incorrectly (despite reading the instructions) kept trying to "Discover Devices" on the Echo before I had a Trigger Name set up properly. So, of course, it kept failing. Total user error on my part, but passing it along should you revise the manual at a future date.

Thanks for the intel on how to properly discover, then hardcode, an IP on the Amazon Echo. Amazon "hides" a lot of that from the mass market crowd that uses this type of device. I was using a static lease, but prefer that "always on" devices are in my block of static IPs so I swapped it out. Just personal preference.

I'm still optimistic C4 does something more official with Homekit and Siri, but this is by far the "best" solution I found to "talk" to C4. Low cost. Easy to set-up. Far less hacky and more reliable than my Raspberry Pi with Homekit build talking to a C4 web events driver. (That C4 driver is also excellent, in my opinion.)

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On 7/1/2016 at 0:26 PM, AP-123 said:

 

# Trigger Event Working?
       
16 Sonos Favorite Station1   Not yet setup
17 Sonos Favorite Station2   Not yet setup
18 Sonos Favorite Station3   Not yet setup
19 Sonos Favorite Station4   Not yet setup
20 Sonos Favorite Station5   Not yet setup
       

 

I ended up with "SONOS MUSIC" to play the current CUE after wasting too much time on "Music" and "Spotify" which are reserved by the Echo I guess. What I haven't figured out how to do is load the CUE from a SPOTIFY PLAYLIST (specifically, the Spotify Discover Weekly) in C4 programming.

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Thanks everyone for your valuable and constructive feedback on our driver!

Vahn - yes you are definitely correct in that you need to use good grammar - I've received many support calls where people were having trouble with triggers which were incorrectly spelled, not proper english, etc.  Keep in mind that the Echo is translating your speech to text and matching that with defined device names.

AP-123 - I would like to share best practices as well, I think this is extremely valuable for people just getting started with the driver, as you now know, there is definitely some trial and error to figure out what Echo likes and what it has trouble with, what are reserved words, etc.  I have tried to document some of that, but the problem is that Amazon changes things up fairly often, so it is a bit of a moving target.  

I would like to hear people's thoughts/suggestions on the best way to centralize a spreadsheet-type list and make it available to all?  Also to keep it updated/maintained?  I'm thinking of perhaps a Google sheet, but of course wouldn't want to open it up for just anyone to edit willy nilly...and at the same time, don't necessarily want to manage it all myself.  Perhaps we need to form some sort of Guru/Swat team for this, where a *special* group of users/dealers can have edit privileges?  Perhaps I'm over-thinking it a bit...not sure.

Open to suggestions!

Thanks

Ari

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I personally think a shared spreadsheet (read, not write, unless you have given them permission [password?]) of reserved words and suggested keywords would be an excellent idea. But it should have a disclaimer with it that clearly indicates these are merely suggestions; trial and error might still be necessary.

I say that because in our house my wife and I have two very different accents (I’m from New York, she’s from southern Illinois); what worked for her did not necessarily work for me; and vice versa. By keeping track of what did work and what did not, I’ve been able to come up with the appropriate device names to have it work almost always – well, except perhaps when friends come to visit and try it out.:)

So it’s more than just keywords. As you stated Alexa “is translating your speech to text and matching that with defined device names.” It’s not a one or two hour installation process – it takes a lot of trial and error – but the time spent has been well worth it! I no longer have my iPhone out all the time - I just ask Alexa to take care of it.

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Thanks Marty for your feedback.  I will start putting together a google sheet and let you all know.  I may nominate a few of you to assist me with edits & such if that is okay.

On a side note - if you like our driver, I would really appreciate it if you could spend a few minutes on www.epic-systems.com on the Echo driver product page and add a product review!

http://www.epic-systems.com/products/amazon-echo-driver-for-control4

 

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I have all the basics setup, everything is either on or off commands though.  I've not been able to figure out how to program up/down macros to control light levels on my dimmers.  I've also got basic room music to turn on/off, but also not able to figure out programming for raising and lowering volume.  Some indepth instructions and programming guide for this driver and scenarios would be fantastic!

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44 minutes ago, drousso said:

I have all the basics setup, everything is either on or off commands though.  I've not been able to figure out how to program up/down macros to control light levels on my dimmers.  I've also got basic room music to turn on/off, but also not able to figure out programming for raising and lowering volume.  Some indepth instructions and programming guide for this driver and scenarios would be fantastic!

 

The programming you want to do is not Echo specific.  

The dimmer up/down is just setting the particular light you want to a certain level or activating an advanced lighting scene. (Set level on room -> lamp to x or activate scene y.

Similar for volume - set the volume for the room or device to whatever level you want (or bump / decrease the level by whatever increment you want)

Test your macros to make sure UP and DOWN are actually being recognized and that you get the "OK" ack as expected.  Sometimes it seems like programming isn't working when it's just not recognizing the trigger.

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On 7/9/2016 at 11:55 AM, Vahn said:

 

I ended up with "SONOS MUSIC" to play the current CUE after wasting too much time on "Music" and "Spotify" which are reserved by the Echo I guess. What I haven't figured out how to do is load the CUE from a SPOTIFY PLAYLIST (specifically, the Spotify Discover Weekly) in C4 programming.

Back tinkering again this morning:  Any suggestions on how to trigger a station, album, etc on spotify?  Looks like the Sonos Pandora driver enables you to select Station and Room.  

chopedogg:  Thoughts on a google sheet?

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2 hours ago, AP-123 said:

Back tinkering again this morning:  Any suggestions on how to trigger a station, album, etc on spotify?  Looks like the Sonos Pandora driver enables you to select Station and Room. 

I haven't gotten this far. I ran into dead ends the last time I tried to do anything meaningful with the Spotify driver in programming. However, I didn't try that hard.

I want to do the same sort of things you do. Specifically, I want to add the Spotify playlist Weekly Discovery to the queue, replacing whatever is in the queue currently, and play it. I'll play around some more tonight when my son is in bed and report back late this evening (PST).

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On 7/16/2016 at 9:05 AM, jfh said:

 

The programming you want to do is not Echo specific.  

The dimmer up/down is just setting the particular light you want to a certain level or activating an advanced lighting scene. (Set level on room -> lamp to x or activate scene y.

Similar for volume - set the volume for the room or device to whatever level you want (or bump / decrease the level by whatever increment you want)

Test your macros to make sure UP and DOWN are actually being recognized and that you get the "OK" ack as expected.  Sometimes it seems like programming isn't working when it's just not recognizing the trigger.

Right.  I get all that.  But it seems very rudimentary.  Say, Turn the Kitchen Lights up:  all i can do is trigger a single lighting scene which will contain a predetermined level. Turn the lights up 10%, and repeat that until I get the appropriate light level, or volume level if dealing with audio.

The advanced programing examples would be great, so perhaps I have a macro and variable in play.  The macro is Increment 10%.  Then I'd like to be able to call that macro from a lighting event or audio even and have it act on the currently triggered device.  Alexa, Turn up the Backyard Music. That would call the increment 10% macro and apply it to the backyard.  Or Alexa, Turn Down the Kitchen Lights, which would call the increment 10% macro and apply is to the Kitchen Lights.  This is the type of killer programming that I'm looking for.

I can do all of this in a brute force way... Not elegent...

I don't know anything about the Echo driver or the AMazon API so I can't tell what gets passed to the driver.  So I can't know if I could tell Alexa to Set the Backyard Music to 50% in one announcement... Or tell Alexa to Set The Kitchen Lights to 10%.  

 

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On 7/16/2016 at 11:45 AM, AP-123 said:

Back tinkering again this morning:  Any suggestions on how to trigger a station, album, etc on spotify?  Looks like the Sonos Pandora driver enables you to select Station and Room.  

chopedogg:  Thoughts on a google sheet?

I don't have Sonos.  But in Pandora, this is what it looks like

Activate Scene 'SCENE' based on last selected room

Play Pandora station: 90s, 2000s, Today's Hits Radio in room(s):

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