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Alexa C4 programming question


Billiam

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I just got C4's skill for Alexa and I'm confused. I see my devices (lights and a few scenes) in the online 4sight window and they all work fine. BUT the only scenes listed are my advanced lighting scenes.  I'm running version 2.8.2. Am I missing a new driver/module for program stuff besides lighting, the t-stat and volume?

I want to say "Alexa, watch Bedroom TV" and it would call the scene/macro/whatever named "Watch Bedroom TV."  In programming I would tell that scene to "select the Bedroom TV as the source in the Bedroom."  I would also add many additional scenes named "Watch CNN" and "Watch CBS" et cetera.  I did this with the VoicePod driver and it worked great - changing channels without having to find the remote buried the cushions is worth the price of admission. 

What am I not seeing in how to program this? Does my dealer have to add something to my system? Will this only work in 2.9?

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Your dealer needs to add a voice scene driver. There only needs to be one per project. From there scenes can be added, like "cooking". Then you can choose that scene in programming and define what actions to take when that scene is received, like turn on a tv, adjust shades, play music, activate a light scene, etc.

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On September 16, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Billiam said:

I just got C4's skill for Alexa and I'm confused. I see my devices (lights and a few scenes) in the online 4sight window and they all work fine. BUT the only scenes listed are my advanced lighting scenes.  I'm running version 2.8.2. Am I missing a new driver/module for program stuff besides lighting, the t-stat and volume?

I want to say "Alexa, watch Bedroom TV" and it would call the scene/macro/whatever named "Watch Bedroom TV."  In programming I would tell that scene to "select the Bedroom TV as the source in the Bedroom."  I would also add many additional scenes named "Watch CNN" and "Watch CBS" et cetera.  I did this with the VoicePod driver and it worked great - changing channels without having to find the remote buried the cushions is worth the price of admission. 

What am I not seeing in how to program this? Does my dealer have to add something to my system? Will this only work in 2.9?

 

Tou won't be able to say "Alexa, watch Bedroom TV".  You can say "Alexa, turn on Bedroom TV".  The Voice Scenes driver will not recognize any A/V related keyword - just ON and OFF.  A lot more detail in the other Alexa threads.

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2 hours ago, jfh said:

 

Tou won't be able to say "Alexa, watch Bedroom TV".  You can say "Alexa, turn on Bedroom TV".  The Voice Scenes driver will not recognize any A/V related keyword - just ON and OFF.  A lot more detail in the other Alexa threads.

So I wouldn't be able to name a voice scene "Watch Bedroom TV" or "Watch CNN in bedroom"?

I assumed Alexa would look for a "device" that I named "Watch Bedroom TV" and trigger that scene.  I have to actually say Turn On or Turn Off for the scene to trigger?

I guess I could name the scenes "CNN in Bedroom" and "CBS in Theatre" and say "Alexa, turn on CNN in Bedroom"  or "Alexa, turn on CBS in Theatre," right?

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Correct.  You can name the scene what you want.  You just have to use ON or OFF as the action word.

 

Turn on "Watch Bedroom TV" or "Watch Bedroom TV" on would trigger the event.  Also, in my experience, the longer the scene name/trigger is, the more unreliable it tends to be.  And some words are just plain stubborn. I can't get Alexa to recognize "Netflix" or most phrases with "two" in it.

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I am using a mix of the control4 and chopedog's driver... I created triggers in the older driver for each room.. so I can use the following phrase:  Alexa SET the bedroom to Directv

 

and I program off that trigger to tun on the bedroom and switch to directv.. I can be fancier.. and have address "setpoints" for each of my favorite channels.. but im lazy

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3 hours ago, StroTek LLC said:

I am using a mix of the control4 and chopedog's driver... I created triggers in the older driver for each room.. so I can use the following phrase:  Alexa SET the bedroom to Directv

 

and I program off that trigger to tun on the bedroom and switch to directv.. I can be fancier.. and have address "setpoints" for each of my favorite channels.. but im lazy

That sounds pretty impressive. I have managed to do that sort of thing with Alan's IFTTT then that driver but did not realise you could do this with ChoppeDog's.

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On 9/18/2016 at 10:59 AM, StroTek LLC said:

I am using a mix of the control4 and chopedog's driver... I created triggers in the older driver for each room.. so I can use the following phrase:  Alexa SET the bedroom to Directv

 

and I program off that trigger to tun on the bedroom and switch to directv.. I can be fancier.. and have address "setpoints" for each of my favorite channels.. but im lazy

How are you doing the programming to recognize the string "DirecTV" as the target of the SET command? I raised this question in the thread for this driver and was told that the driver only passes a number when using SET. Can you please share the programming details?

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Is there a thread that describes the various Alexa solutions?  I'm currently using the Alexa skill on 2.8.2 but wanted to know what the other 2 give me in terms of usage.  

Also, with the skill, has anyone been able to set their alarm?  I tried to use the voice scene name "Stay" and "Home to Stay" but Alexa never seems to understand or returns with there are more than 1 command response.  When a say it the second time, it works.

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1 hour ago, sally said:

Is there a thread that describes the various Alexa solutions?  I'm currently using the Alexa skill on 2.8.2 but wanted to know what the other 2 give me in terms of usage.  

Also, with the skill, has anyone been able to set their alarm?  I tried to use the voice scene name "Stay" and "Home to Stay" but Alexa never seems to understand or returns with there are more than 1 command response.  When a say it the second time, it works.

I thought they were supposed to have alarm interaction turned off right now, but if you got it to work at all, it might explain the wonkiness.

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Thanks.  I'll try that.  Alexa seems to think I want to set an alarm for a certain time.  Would be nice to just say "Alexa, set the home alarm to stay".  I think its the word "alarm" its having an issue with.  Stay or Away are not enough either.

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If you want to use the phrase "alexa SET the home alarm TO stay" you would need to use the alexa driver from Epic-Systems.. that driver allows the use of SET and passing variable after the TO part

 

in that driver you would create a trigger called "the home alarm"

and in programming you would add a conditional for the String variable  to be "stay" and then add your programming to that

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On 9/22/2016 at 9:51 AM, StroTek LLC said:

On version 110 of the driver you can now also pass a string, there are three variables tied to the driver

I have version 110 and am familiar with the new SET command. The only thing that SET recognizes for me are numbers. I posted this question in the driver announcement thread and the responses I got indicate that you can't use words with the SET command with this driver.

Am I not doing something right? How are you getting it to recognize words and pass them to the string value?

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Since the Echo is a separate device that acts relatively independently of C4, do you have to add the "Amazon Echo" device to your project?  I have an Echo and it's set up to control my C4 lights but it's not in my project and I haven't had my dealer add a voice scene driver yet.

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Since the Echo is a separate device that acts relatively independently of C4, do you have to add the "Amazon Echo" device to your project?  I have an Echo and it's set up to control my C4 lights but it's not in my project and I haven't had my dealer add a voice scene driver yet.

The driver they are talking about is not the c4 free solution. It is a 3rd party paid for solution

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk

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4 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

The driver they are talking about is not the c4 free solution. It is a 3rd party paid for solution

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk

I was wondering about the actual device appearing in the project as in the picture above showing the Amazon Echo listed under the user's shades devices.

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