chopedogg88 Posted August 21, 2016 Author Share Posted August 21, 2016 All- we have the 30 trigger limit stuff sorted out/eliminated, and we have SET to value events implemented. We would like to make available a pre-release copy of the driver for for "beta" testing. See download links below! I am still fine-tuning the documentation, so please let me know of any suggestions for enhancements. A Few things to note: 1) when migrating from v106 to v109, "Set" events for existing triggers will be added to the bottom of the list. For any new triggers, they will be listed along with the ON/OFF/UP/DOWN events for each trigger. 2) when discovering over approximately 35 triggers, Alexa may report that no devices were discovered. This seems to be a bug on the Amazon side of things, because the devices are actually discovered just fine, and if you use them they will work. If you are in the Alexa app, tab off of the Smart Home screen and back to it (after Echo is done talking), and you'll see them. 3) PLEASE BACKUP YOUR PROJECT BEFORE UPGRADING!!! we are not responsible for any lost programming during Beta testing 4) Enjoy! Download Links: Driver: http://null.to/ari/download/beta/echo/amazon_echo.c4z Docs: http://null.to/ari/download/beta/echo/amazon_echo.pdf -Epic Systems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 So my dealer updated the driver... I have rebooted my controller... I can program against the set command but I can't get the set command to work with Alexa. Has anyone else got this working? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 Works fine for me...what are you saying to Alexa exactly? I say "set <trigger name> to <value>", for example, "set living room to 30". Works every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 That is exactly what I am doing... My problem seems to relate to the trigger name... In most cases Alexa simply beeps at me if I have a number above 12 and asks me if that is 10 o'clock in the morning or evening if I use a number equal to or below 12. Examples of trigger names: Petra, Newsboys, Steve Camp (all artist names that work perfectly with turn on xxx or decrease xxx etc.). In some cases it beeps at me irrespective of whether the number is below 12 or not (e.g. Blinds). Of my 29 triggers, I have managed to get three to work "set bedroom track to xxx" or "set room to xxx" or set "downstairs to xxx" although I have got nothing programmed against these so have not (yet) tested the outcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 so you are trying to create set commands/events for individual artist names? honestly I had not tried that scenario in testing...wouldn't think that you'd want to do it that way, but rather just have one set command for the room that the music is playing in, regardless of what artist is playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Agreed! The artist names are examples. The problem is that all my rooms have been set up with the kids name as the room name, so if I say set Nancy to 10, I want the volume in Nancy's room to be 10. I don't actually have a daughter called Namcy, but you get the picture. I will try changing the trigger to Nancy's room instead of just Nancy and see if that works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 okay great. please let's not suggest that the driver is not working properly by providing unrealistic examples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 1 minute ago, chopedogg88 said: okay great. please let's not suggest that the driver is not working properly by providing unrealistic examples. Hmmm. It is a realistic example for me and is not working for me. The fact that I am not posting my daughters names (and using other names as an example) is basic web security... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StroTek LLC Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 I have room's named after my kids as well.. but I have my triggers set as "Nancy's room" instead of just "Nancy" I have yet to try to the SET trigger though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 Hah well okay that one is debatable...I was referring to the artist name example. I have two daughters myself, and I would definitely not create a trigger with her name, such that I were forced to say "Turn on <my daughter's name>"! that is basic fatherhood Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 4 minutes ago, chopedogg88 said: Hah well okay that one is debatable...I was referring to the artist name example. I have two daughters myself, and I would definitely not create a trigger with her name, such that I were forced to say "Turn on <my daughter's name>"! that is basic fatherhood Fair point . And not something I am going to think too much about! Using the poor unknown Nancy, I can confirm that hat turn on, off, increase and decrease Nancy works but set Nancy to xxx does not. However, using the more acceptable Nancy's room works in all cases. Assuming this works for all 3 of my kids names, that fixes some of my main challenge. I have two important items left on my trigger list that don't work: 1. Blinds 2. Bedroom volume Both work fine for tour on / off and bedroom volume works great for increase and decrease but neither works for set xxx to yyy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 "bedroom volume" is working fine for me with set commands. re: "blinds", as has been discussed previously, "blinds" is a keyword or some sort of semi-keyword with Echo, and on its own does not work well (doesn't work with raise/lower for example). Workaround is to include a room name before blinds, such as "bedroom blinds", or "living room blinds" and then it works perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Staying with the fictitious Nancy and giving the comments on fatherhood... my setup if Nancy wants to play her sister, Carolyn's playlist in her room is for her to say: 1. Turn on Nancy's room 2. Followed (within 1 minute) by Turn on Carolyn. Ideally I would want to say Turn on Carolyn's playlist but playlist does not work (reserved word on Alexa). Are there any suggestions for an alternative? The above means that with two voice commands I can play pretty much any playlist (I have 13 or 14) in any room (5 or 6 setup). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StroTek LLC Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 I would think that Alexa wouldn't process "Carolyn's playlist" as "carolyn" and "playlist" (as in two separate triggers).. but rather as 1 single trigger similar to how "blinds" doesnt work, but "bedroom blinds" does work Also I love this idea.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Sadly xxx playlist is reserved by Alexa for playing saved playlists linked to Alexa (not Control4). Or at least that was the case a few months ago when I tried. If you use the idea, the secret to making the programming easy is to always play the chosen playlist / artist in a dummy room or a room without speakers (I use the garage as I have no speakers there) and then run a macro which joins the chosen room to the garage. This makes for easy programming (one macro per room - about 3 or 4 lines of code), two lines of code when you first choose the room (set a variable that identifies the room and start a timer which resets the variable to the default room - zero in my case - after 45 seconds). Then when the second command is given, you play the playlist in the dummy room and then have a series of if statements to identify which room to use (one if being the default room - zero which is our main bedroom in my case - if there as not been a room command given to Alexa in the last 45 seconds). Under each if statement you run the macro mentioned above related to the room in question. Finally, outside the if statements, you turn the dummy room off. Works like a charm and once set up, easy to add playlists! A line or two of code and they will work in any room! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 Yes "playlist" and "music" (if not provided after a room name" seem to trigger Echo to want to play from itself. I have successfully used "<daughter's name> audio" to trigger playlists. Not ideal, but not the worst. Better than using a dummy room in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elvis Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 A few questions that I couldn't find searching through this thread. The documentation link on this page, ver 109, doesn't talk much if any about using the driver to control entertainment/TV. I'm assuming that my dealer could install this and I could tell the echo to "Watch ESPN" or "Watch Netflix" and the echo would trigger this to happen as if I'd selected it on the remote? On my 260 wand remote, what functionality is replicated via the echo on this driver? Or perhaps the shorter answer would be what does it NOT do that the remote does? I apologize if asked and answered. I just couldn't find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 23, 2016 Author Share Posted August 23, 2016 Hi Elvis, Thanks for your question. Yes, you can use the Echo driver to control Music and TV. In fact you can use it to control anything that is able to be programmed in your Control4 system. The only limitation is that there are certain words which must be used, and unfortunately, "Watch" isn't a word that Echo understands. But you could create triggers called "ESPN", and "Netflix"...or "Apple TV", "Cable", "Xfinity", etc. Then you simply say "Alexa, turn on <trigger name>", for example, "Alexa, turn on Apple TV". You can replicate any of the button presses on your SR-260 remote in programming. However, I wouldn't want to use Echo to control things like changing channels and such...some thing are still better done with a tactile remote control (in my opinion). Hope that helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StroTek LLC Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 I am actually working on getting my system to do things like: "Alexa Set the living room Tv to channel 26" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 20 minutes ago, StroTek LLC said: I am actually working on getting my system to do things like: "Alexa Set the living room Tv to channel 26" I don't actually have the new driver loaded yet - does it pass the SET value so it can be used in a conditional? If so, this would be a nice use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StroTek LLC Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 it does pass the SET value.. however its a numeric value.. so "Channel 26" wont work, but "26" will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 23, 2016 Author Share Posted August 23, 2016 Correct, it is a numeric value. Please see driver documentation link for more details. That is a good idea, I had never even thought of using it to pass a channel number! The things you guys come up with... The only pain is with using it to set temperatures...temp variables are typically a FLOAT data type, so you can't directly set it from the SET_VALUE variable in our driver...you have to do some conditional logic. Probably not a big deal if you only have a few temperature values that you commonly will set to (say from like 68F to 75F?). I am looking into seeing if we can provide two variables (with the same value)...one NUMBER and one FLOAT, to make this easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StroTek LLC Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 for the thermostat.. we typically just integrate the Echo directly with the NEST or the Ecobee.. no need to go through control4 to change the temp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted August 23, 2016 Author Share Posted August 23, 2016 ...unless you have a control4 thermostat...then that doesn't work... Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 19 minutes ago, StroTek LLC said: it does pass the SET value.. however its a numeric value.. so "Channel 26" wont work, but "26" will Cool, so changing channels should be easy if maybe a little tedious/repetitive in the programming. Then my biggest problem becomes remembering channel numbers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.