schrady Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 26 minutes ago, jfh said: What devices names give you trouble with UP and DOWN? Kitchen, living room, bedroom, heat, thermostat...............Dim works with all of them...... Its hears up as off 90% of the time in my use.Even when I speak extra slowly and clearly, pronouncing everything correct. Any doubt, see my video above. Its not me, its Alexa. Can't we set the 4 drivers it makes from each to trigger to something besides up/down. Cant you change them to rise and Dim? Or something else? Send me me an unencrypted version of this driver and I'll do it. I've been programming business software for 10 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 13 minutes ago, schrady said: Can't we set the 4 drivers it makes from each to trigger to something besides up/down. Cant you change them to rise and Dim? Or something else? No. on/off/up/down has nothing to do with the function of the driver. That is a function of the Phillips Hue support in Echo. 13 minutes ago, schrady said: Send me me an unencrypted version of this driver and I'll do it. I've been programming business software for 10 years. I doubt the developer would want to do that. But it wouldn't help you even if you had it. If you read the prior discussions you might understand why. I don't care how good a programmer you are. You cannot take a closed, one way only path you have no access to or control over (the Amazon side) and make it a two way path. The only way to improve on this driver is to write a new one that uses an Alexa skill and AVS and ditch the Phillips Hue exploit. The development kit is free. Have at it. The actual steps you need to take have already been documented. Conceptually, it's pretty simple. When you have a working two way solution, I'll be your first customer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 8 minutes ago, jfh said: No. on/off/up/down has nothing to do with the function of the driver. That is a function of the Phillips Hue support in Echo. I doubt the developer would want to do that. But it wouldn't help you even if you had it. If you read the prior discussions you might understand why. I don't care how good a programmer you are. You cannot take a closed, one way only path you have no access to or control over (the Amazon side) and make it a two way path. The only way to improve on this driver is to write a new one that uses an Alexa skill and AVS and ditch the Phillips Hue exploit. The development kit is free. Have at it. The actual steps you need to take have already been documented. Conceptually, it's pretty simple. When you have a working two way solution, I'll be your first customer. I had actually just found the page that details how to setup a new skill. Now we're cooking with real wood. Lets see how far we can get making somehting from scratch for C4 vs using a lighting driver. We still go back to ECHO's protected words (there are a ton of them) though. Thats why using Siri is so much better. For now this will do, but I bet I have a working Siri solution in 4-6 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted February 15, 2016 Author Share Posted February 15, 2016 Thanks everyone for your support of our driver. schrady, not sure why you are so negative on it...it seemed from your video like it is working quite well for you. But if you are unhappy with it, feel free to let me know directly and I would happily refund the $100 you paid for the driver. Or go onto the amazon forum and complain about its voice recognition capabilities in comparison to Siri... Most of the issues you seem to have with it are with how echo interprets things, vs. functionality of our driver. In fact, our driver already works with the 4 EVENT types that can be triggered for a light/dimmer (UP/DOWN/ON/OFF). We don't have to expose specific events for every word that Echo has in its vocabulary...as you already can see...it works with the word DIM as you showed in your video already (Not to mention, the word DIM is mentioned in our documentation in the examples...), and we didn't specifically have to expose an event for that word. Anyways, as Jim as said, feel free to write your own driver and sell and support it, or give it away and get harassed when you don't provide instantaneous support...and if you are as good of a developer as you say, it should be easy, you shouldn't need to take our code and "enhance" it! Yes sure you could also write a skill...I've already documented the reasons why we didn't go that route earlier in this thread...have you read the whole thread by the way? Good luck with that...HouseLogix has been working on it for a year or so apparently... Regarding the Siri approach...its APPLEs and oranges..first of all, myself and millions of other people prefer Android over iPhone. So are we SOL with your solution? Also I prefer not to walk around the house talking into my phone to make things happen in my house...at that point I might as well just push a button on the keypad or touchscreen...not to mention its socially awkward...the Echo is a hands-free device, always listening...completely different ball game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 37 minutes ago, chopedogg88 said: Also I prefer not to walk around the house talking into my phone to make things happen in my house...at that point I might as well just push a button on the keypad or touchscreen...not to mention its socially awkward...the Echo is a hands-free device, always listening...completely different ball game. Thats exactly why I stopped using my Siri solution. That and my wife and most guests don't have an iPhone. The holy grail is hands-free voice recognition control. VoicePod and Alexa allow that, Siri doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 37 minutes ago, jfh said: Thats exactly why I stopped using my Siri solution. That and my wife and most guests don't have an iPhone. The holy grail is hands-free voice recognition control. VoicePod and Alexa allow that, Siri doesn't. You're wrong. Starting with Iphone 6 all you have to do is say 'Hey Siri' and it responds. No button pushes. Nothing. So instead of saying 'Alexa', you just say 'Hey Siri' I have an ipad in my wall I can use for just this kind of thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOutsider Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 An iPad mounted likely costs more than an Echo solution (you seemed to be price-sensitive), but do drop us a line in 4-6 months and let us see your solution in action. In the meantime, my family will be enjoying using the Echo for controlling the home, playing music and getting information quickly. Worth every penny for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 So I have been thinking a bit about what I want from the Echo driver. Ideally I want to say play xxx in yyy where xxx is a playlist and yyy is a room. While this is not possible at present (I am sure it will be one day), the current Echo driver is the best voice control driver we have at present (my opinion) and we could already do the above using the following commands: Turn on yyy Turn on xxx My thought process is as follows (and I would welcome comments / improvements). Using Petra (a Christian Rock group from the 80s) as my playlist and the following zones (Main bedroom and outside). I would create a variable RoomNumber and give each room a number (0 for the main bedroom as I want 0 as a default), 1 for outside, 2 for downstairs, 3 - 5 for my other bedrooms etc. My code for Turn on outside (similarly for other rooms) would be: Set RoomNumber = 1 StartTimer RoomCountDown On RoomCountDown Expires, my code would be: if RoomNumber = 1 If outside is off, play default playlist for outside Etc. Set RoomNumber = 0 My code for Turn on Petra (similarly for other playlists) would be: If RoomNumber = 0 play Petra in Main Bedroom If RoomNumber = 1 play Petra in Outside Etc. Set RoomNumber = 0 A better approach for this last bit of code (I am just not sure if it will work) is to create a dummy room and do the following: Play Petra in Dummy room Execute macro JoinRoom The macro JoinRoom would then have the following code: If RoomNumber = 0 then add main bedroom to what is playing in the DummyRoom If RoomNumber = 1 then add outside to what is playing in the DummyRoom etc. Turn Off DummyRoom Set RoomNumber = 0 I am not sure if I can play music in a dummy room in order to do this :-). If not, I could simply use the bathroom which will then play music briefly there every time I use this method... The advantage of the second method is that there is much less coding needed for each extra playlist because the macro can be used over and over again. The above would play any playlist chosen in the room that is chosen immediately prior to that (within 1 minute if one sets the timer to 1 minute). If a room is chosen and no playlist is chosen then a default playlist will play in that room after 1 minute. If a playlist is chosen without a room being chosen then it will play in the main bedroom (the location of the echo). This could be improved on in various ways - e.g. By having other rooms at the end of the timer countdown (if chosen without a playlist following up), joining anything playing in the main bedroom as a default for other rooms (when the timer expires) and then going to a default playlist for the room if there is nothing playing in the main bedroom. I would welcome comments / thoughts / suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bk Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Are you still offering one for show and one to go? 2 licences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayk32 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I have 10 triggers. All 10 worked initially and then 2 stopped working. The 8 that work are "room light on / room light off" triggers. The 2 that stopped working are "room shade up / room shade down" triggers. The events execute correctly in C4, but Alexa doesn't seem to the like the command ... she just gives me the beep or does nothing and says "ok". I've deleted, recreated and rediscovered the triggers to make sure they were not somehow corrupted. I have QMotion roller shades. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 57 minutes ago, rayk32 said: I have 10 triggers. All 10 worked initially and then 2 stopped working. The 8 that work are "room light on / room light off" triggers. The 2 that stopped working are "room shade up / room shade down" triggers. The events execute correctly in C4, but Alexa doesn't seem to the like the command ... she just gives me the beep or does nothing and says "ok". I've deleted, recreated and rediscovered the triggers to make sure they were not somehow corrupted. I have QMotion roller shades. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. One of the challenges with Alexa is that she keeps being updated and this is not always to our benefit. I have had a couple of problems like this where triggers that worked stop working or don't work properly. It is frustrating... All my problems have been with TV or up / down linked commands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayk32 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I wonder if this is negatively affecting the people who are actually using Philips Hue lights as well? The Echo processes the language and sends event to the controller, but it doesn't seem to make it past the Echo. I turned on debugging in the driver, but there is no output for success or failure, which leads me to think that feature is not working yet. Does that sound accurate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Sounds right and I suspect Hue users will be having the same problem although I do find my echo works perfectly for anything with the word light or lamp in it... So the problem may not be too noticeable to Hue users. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 On 2/15/2016 at 1:32 PM, chopedogg88 said: Thanks everyone for your support of our driver. schrady, not sure why you are so negative on it...it seemed from your video like it is working quite well for you. But if you are unhappy with it, feel free to let me know directly and I would happily refund the $100 you paid for the driver. Or go onto the amazon forum and complain about its voice recognition capabilities in comparison to Siri... Most of the issues you seem to have with it are with how echo interprets things, vs. functionality of our driver. In fact, our driver already works with the 4 EVENT types that can be triggered for a light/dimmer (UP/DOWN/ON/OFF). We don't have to expose specific events for every word that Echo has in its vocabulary...as you already can see...it works with the word DIM as you showed in your video already (Not to mention, the word DIM is mentioned in our documentation in the examples...), and we didn't specifically have to expose an event for that word. Anyways, as Jim as said, feel free to write your own driver and sell and support it, or give it away and get harassed when you don't provide instantaneous support...and if you are as good of a developer as you say, it should be easy, you shouldn't need to take our code and "enhance" it! Yes sure you could also write a skill...I've already documented the reasons why we didn't go that route earlier in this thread...have you read the whole thread by the way? Good luck with that...HouseLogix has been working on it for a year or so apparently... Regarding the Siri approach...its APPLEs and oranges..first of all, myself and millions of other people prefer Android over iPhone. So are we SOL with your solution? Also I prefer not to walk around the house talking into my phone to make things happen in my house...at that point I might as well just push a button on the keypad or touchscreen...not to mention its socially awkward...the Echo is a hands-free device, always listening...completely different ball game. To ChokedDogg:. Yes, I would like my money back. Please deactivate my mac and refund my credit card. Above you say you are happy to do so. Please do as I request. Thanks..Schrady PS. See next Post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOutsider Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 *edit* nevermind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Crap, I think my last post took an Alexa. Bad video cause I had to hold two iphones, but you can clearly hear SIRI confirming my instructions. I did it in a week. How good at this could you other forum trolls be? Alexa is going home to amazon and the driver back to Epic. No need now. SCHRADY!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 4 minutes ago, AnOutsider said: *edit* nevermind. Eat crow **Edit** never mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOutsider Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 If you have a great Siri driver, that's awesome. But why troll an unrelated thread and insult people? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 1 minute ago, AnOutsider said: If you have a great Siri driver, that's awesome. But why troll an unrelated thread and insult people? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Cause you losers said I couldnt do it. In the end I have to thank you for urging me on................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOutsider Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Where did anyone say you couldn't? I remember lots of "this is about Alexa, not Siri". In fact, one person said if you built something great, they'd buy it. Their perogative, but I couldn't see myself doing business with someone so childishly egotistical. So congrats on your accomplishment. Go make a new thread about it so that this one can return to the topic at hand. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 1 minute ago, AnOutsider said: Where did anyone say you couldn't? I remember lots of "this is about Alexa, not Siri". In fact, one person said if you built something great, they'd buy it. Their perogative, but I couldn't see myself doing business with someone so childishly egotistical. So congrats on your accomplishment. Go make a new thread about it so that this one can return to the topic at hand. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk I also have an Alexa hardware/driver and have posted vids of that too. Thats why I'm posting in the thread. Before someone spends $300 they should know I think its of poor quality overall as a solution and that this is better. Siri vs Alexa for voice recongntion isnt even close. Siri rarey misses one word I say, even when texting. Anyways,. thats why I'm posting here. Do you have Alexa setup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 16 minutes ago, schrady said: 9 minutes ago, schrady said: Cause you losers said I couldnt do it. In the end I have to thank you for urging me on................... Reading comprehension is a useful life skill that seems to have deserted you on multiple occasions... We said you couldn't write an Echo driver. A Siri solution is easy. And there are multiple solutions using Siri that work fine, so don't know why you wasted a week reinventing one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Totaleclips205 Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Chokeddogg your Alexa driver is great I've been using it now for a few weeks and I can say you done a great job. Keep up the good work!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schrady Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 As thrilling as this is, I'm out. I dont have a 30 trigger limit (like Alexa) so I have a helluva a lot of programming to do and some standards to write b4 I can help anyone else out with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 9 minutes ago, schrady said: As thrilling as this is, I'm out. I dont have a 30 trigger limit (like Alexa) so I have a helluva a lot of programming to do and some standards to write b4 I can help anyone else out with it. You really don't pay attention, do you? Alexa doesn't have a 30 trigger limit - the Hue support does. If you write the Echo skill, Alexa can have as many triggers as you want. But you seem to be too dense to understand that and want to compare apples to oranges. We we all know you aren't as smart as you think you are, but thanks for continuing to come back to remind us of that. Glad to hear you're happy with your Siri solution. Start your own thread to discuss it if you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.