Alexa in Multiroom Control 4 Automation

[SVarghese]

I have a Control 4 Based Home Automation System running in a 4 Bed room Villa. The Set up has 5 Alexa units in each of the respective areas 1. Living Room 2. Home Theater 3. Master bed Room 4. Sons room 5. Daughters room. Each room has lights that are connected to Clipsal dimmer and Air conditioner connected via Infra red to the Control 4 Controller. Also Apple TV and Tata Sky controlled via IR to the Control 4 Controller

Each room can be controlled independantly via Control4 Touch Panel installed in the each respective room.  All good.

Now the customer asked us to install Alexa into every room so that it can control device via Voice Commands. 5 Alexa Units were installed and programmed for Control 4 device control.

Now we have programmed each area to the controlled with the following voice command

Alexa , Room/Location Name , Device , State 

ie. For Master Bed Room Area to Turn on the Lights we have to say

--> Alexa Masterbed room , Lights on

ie. For Master Bed Room Area to Turn on the Tata Sky we have to say

ie. --> Alexa Masterbed room , Tatasky on

AND

ie. For Home Theater Area to Turn on the Lights we have to say

--> Alexa Home Theater room , Lights on

ie. For Home Theater Area to Turn on the Tata Sky we have to say

ie. --> Alexa Home Theater , Tatasky on

We have programmed this way and it works fine.

Now my customer comes and says he does not want to mention the Location Name every time. If he is in the Bed Room, he wants to say

"Alexa, Turn on lights  " and the lights of the Bed room alone must turn on.

And if he is in Home theater and if he says the same voice command "Alexa, Turn on lights  "  ---> Only the Home Theater Lights must turn on.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have checked creating a Smart Devices Group and tried various ways to do this. But Alexa allows only one Unique Group name or voice command as all 5 of my alexa are connected.

Is there a way in which i can make the Alexa in a Room or location to control only the devices in that room or location alone and that too by giving a simple command like

Alexa ,Device , State 

i.e

Alexa, Lights on

or

Alexa Tatasky on

 

Can anyone help me do this in Alexa. Each room i must be able to use the command Alexa Device and State to control the devices in that location only. I tried the Smart Home Group but it does not help me create a unique group name only for one area. I tried this option.

Kindly help.

 

 

[sonic30101]

The epic alexa driver might be worth checking into

[Zuhair]

50 minutes ago, SVarghese said:

I have a Control 4 Based Home Automation System running in a 4 Bed room Villa. The Set up has 5 Alexa units in each of the respective areas 1. Living Room 2. Home Theater 3. Master bed Room 4. Sons room 5. Daughters room. Each room has lights that are connected to Clipsal dimmer and Air conditioner connected via Infra red to the Control 4 Controller. Also Apple TV and Tata Sky controlled via IR to the Control 4 Controller

Each room can be controlled independantly via Control4 Touch Panel installed in the each respective room.  All good.

Now the customer asked us to install Alexa into every room so that it can control device via Voice Commands. 5 Alexa Units were installed and programmed for Control 4 device control.

Now we have programmed each area to the controlled with the following voice command

Alexa , Room/Location Name , Device , State 

ie. For Master Bed Room Area to Turn on the Lights we have to say

--> Alexa Masterbed room , Lights on

ie. For Master Bed Room Area to Turn on the Tata Sky we have to say

ie. --> Alexa Masterbed room , Tatasky on

AND

ie. For Home Theater Area to Turn on the Lights we have to say

--> Alexa Home Theater room , Lights on

ie. For Home Theater Area to Turn on the Tata Sky we have to say

ie. --> Alexa Home Theater , Tatasky on

We have programmed this way and it works fine.

Now my customer comes and says he does not want to mention the Location Name every time. If he is in the Bed Room, he wants to say

"Alexa, Turn on lights  " and the lights of the Bed room alone must turn on.

And if he is in Home theater and if he says the same voice command "Alexa, Turn on lights  "  ---> Only the Home Theater Lights must turn on.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have checked creating a Smart Devices Group and tried various ways to do this. But Alexa allows only one Unique Group name or voice command as all 5 of my alexa are connected.

Is there a way in which i can make the Alexa in a Room or location to control only the devices in that room or location alone and that too by giving a simple command like

Alexa ,Device , State 

i.e

Alexa, Lights on

or

Alexa Tatasky on

 

Can anyone help me do this in Alexa. Each room i must be able to use the command Alexa Device and State to control the devices in that location only. I tried the Smart Home Group but it does not help me create a unique group name only for one area. I tried this option.

Kindly help.

 

 

You will need a separate Amazon account for each room/device.

[SVarghese]

Well Creating separate account is not possible as the client uses each Alexa to make calls to other Alexa. So he needs all Alexas on the same network and on the same account to access all of his music. Im sure there is a way to do this.

 

Any one ?

[lippavisual]

Alexas are not currently room aware.  The only way to do this is to have separate accounts, like mentioned above.

Otherwise, room locations are needed so that the appropriate coding is triggered for said command.

[South Africa C4 user]

You can also run the output from each Alexa to an audio input on, say, an EA controller and then use Audio sensing to determine which Alexa is active and use that to add the logic to the programming.  The other option is a light sensor next to the echo to pick up when the blue light lights up. 

 

Neither route is easy to accomplish, but both have been done.

[CFUG]

1 hour ago, South Africa C4 user said:

... The other option is a light sensor next to the echo to pick up when the blue light lights up. 

Light sensor connected to what?  That's some amount of hardware for something as simple as speaking a room (which is what I do and have no problem doing so).

[South Africa C4 user]

5 minutes ago, CFUG said:

Light sensor connected to what?  That's some amount of hardware for something as simple as speaking a room (which is what I do and have no problem doing so).

Some people (not me, I started down this route but moved on to testing the audio sensing route) have had succes attaching a light sensor to the ring of their Echo Dot and thus picking up when the blue light comes on.

And yes, it probably is overkill and it would be so much better if Amazon would simply expose the Identity of the Echo being spoken to - but I am not holding my breath.

[CFUG]

That doesn't answer my question.  What, specifically, would the sensor trigger?  Anyone can mention the general idea behind something but this is just plain too complicated considering that what you say should happen in that room ID could be a characteristic of Echo

[sonic30101]

Never tried but I would attempt. Whenever the sensor is triggered change a string variable to room name. Then each voice command has a conditional nested inside for each room value the variable could be. But that would require the se sor to be quick to respond for sure. The audio trigger on an audio matrix or controller would probably work similarly in programing and more reliably

[CFUG]

^Oh, I don't doubt it could be made to work programatically.  Again, triggering is important to get right so as not wind-up with some ridiculous mouse trap.  Exsqueeze my ignorance but does the Gen1 C4 8 zone amp have audio sensing?  I've never seen evidence of it in Composer...

[sonic30101]

6 minutes ago, CFUG said:

^Oh, I don't doubt it could be made to work programatically.  Again, triggering is important to get right so as not wind-up with some ridiculous mouse trap.  Exsqueeze my ignorance but does the Gen1 C4 8 zone amp have audio sensing?  I've never seen evidence of it in Composer...

No idea on that one. Before my time. Started programing c4 in OS2.5 so never ran into one of those

[dcovach]

26 minutes ago, CFUG said:

^Oh, I don't doubt it could be made to work programatically.  Again, triggering is important to get right so as not wind-up with some ridiculous mouse trap.  Exsqueeze my ignorance but does the Gen1 C4 8 zone amp have audio sensing?  I've never seen evidence of it in Composer...

Both the EA3 and EA5 have audio sensing.  Works well and very responsive.

[Zuhair]

Well Creating separate account is not possible as the client uses each Alexa to make calls to other Alexa. So he needs all Alexas on the same network and on the same account to access all of his music. Im sure there is a way to do this.
 
Any one ?

You can make Alexa to Alexa calls with different accounts.
In my case I tried few options, the option of multiple accounts was the straight through and easy setup


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jfh]

What I do is use other means to determine which room I'm in (motion, AV events or direct "Alexa, I'm in the Living Room"), set a location variable and then program off that.  So the Alexa command could be "Turn on the TV" and the related code has a series of conditions to figure out what commands to issue.  I also have a variable that tracks if certain people are home and use that too so "Alexa, turn on the radio" does one thing if my wife is home and another if I am.

This is certainly not ideal, but if Amazon ever does provide location info all I have to do is use that to set my existing room location variable and the rest of the code doesn't have to change.  I do have some echos close enough to each other where sometimes one will answer and sometimes another which would have to be addressed if Amazon enables device reporting.

I use Alexa Routines to trigger C4 macros (with the Epic driver which I prefer over Voice Scenes).  The real work is doing all the logic to determine which room the desired command applies to.  I'm about to write logic to add generic commands to control shades across the house.

 

 

[South Africa C4 user]

23 hours ago, sonic30101 said:

Never tried but I would attempt. Whenever the sensor is triggered change a string variable to room name. Then each voice command has a conditional nested inside for each room value the variable could be. But that would require the se sor to be quick to respond for sure. The audio trigger on an audio matrix or controller would probably work similarly in programing and more reliably

I use a mixture of this (although I use a room number and not a string), fuzzy logic (as described by @jfh (admittedly, I only use motion sensors and not geo location) and over-ride voice commands (which I allow a voice command to set the room number for the period of one hour whereafter it reverts to sensing and motion sensors). 

The key is to program things so that if (when) Amazon finally allows us to identify which Echo was spoken to, all one does is use that to set the room number (or string) and delete all the other code that sets this currently.

It is not perfect but works not too bad.

[CesarHinde]

Hi....People build new homes and have issues with their plumber, does not mean people should stay away from all toilets in the future! Just get a new plumber.You can knock C4 for being a dealer centric system, you can call it expensive compared to DIY systems, but it is by far crap or flakey when set up properly.

rapid smt assembly

[tdougray]

3 hours ago, CesarHinde said:

but it is by far crap or flakey when set up properly.
 

About 2 yrs too late

im I’m sure there should be a “not” in there Somewhere