Control4/Alexa Integration

[rolldog]

I've seen multiple posts regarding setting up C4 and Alexa so someone can say, "Alexa, play _______ in the kitchen, BR, LR, etc" and it seems like the only way this can be setup is to install a dedicated Echo Dot in the rack with the C4 equipment. Is this correct? If anyone is familiar with setting this up, can I pay someone to do this? I already have a spare Echo Dot. I'm not sure if the Epic Alexa driver is necessary too, but it seems like it may have some other features that I might want too.

 

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[Kahn]

It's super simple with connected Sonos. I have an echo dot in the kitchen and can say "Alexa, play music in the Kitchen" and she will start playing something on the Play5 (located in the kitchen). I have a FireTV connected to my TV in my master bedroom and can say "Alexa, turn off master cans" and she will turn them off OR I can say "Alexa, play music in Master bedroom" and she will start playing. Scenes work the same way. I used "Alexa, turn on goodnight" every night. My Goodnight Scene with additional programming shuts off and turns on various lights, locks doors, checks garage doors, etc.....I don't have an echo in my rack. Just various devices around the house using the C4 dot driver. I'm totally satisfied.

 

[rolldog]

I can do the same, regarding lights, HVAC, pool control, scenes, shades, locks, etc, but I want my daughters to be able to say Alexa, play so and so in any room they want instead of having to listen to everything from the Echo Show in the kitchen.

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[sonic30101]

You need an echo dot/link connected to the audio matrix or amp. As long as it is a c4 matrix or amp you can trigger the zone to turn on and off when signal is present. If it and AVR only you probably want a Sonos preamp since the driver will turn the zone on and off

[rolldog]

I have a C4 matrix and amp, I just need someone to do the programming.

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[timelinex]

The only reason you would need an echo hooked up is if you want alexa to be the source of the music itself versus services that can be implemented on C4 already. Do you need that specifically?

 

You can tell Alexa "Alex, turn on X room pandora" (using routines) or other commands and it will play in the respective service in the respective room. It just takes a bit of programming.

 

I've never seen others talk about this, but with a bit of creative programming ,I have it setup to where i can verbally play the next song or even change stations between 5 that i have preprogrammed. I guess if you want to verbally command alexa to play stations you havent programmed , then yes you may need to hook up an Alexa directly?

 

 

 

 

[South Africa C4 user]

56 minutes ago, timelinex said:

The only reason you would need an echo hooked up is if you want alexa to be the source of the music itself versus services that can be implemented on C4 already. Do you need that specifically?

 

You can tell Alexa "Alex, turn on X room pandora" (using routines) or other commands and it will play in the respective service in the respective room. It just takes a bit of programming.

 

I've never seen others talk about this, but with a bit of creative programming ,I have it setup to where i can verbally play the next song or even change stations between 5 that i have preprogrammed. I guess if you want to verbally command alexa to play stations you havent programmed , then yes you may need to hook up an Alexa directly?

 

 

 

 

This! It just takes some thought, planning and time.  I use Alexa to control music throughout my house.  It is all played via Tidal through C4 but the commands are given via Alexa and the Voice Scenes driver.  I have things like “turn on music in the bedroom”, “turn on Whiteheart in the bedroom”, “Turn on Whiteheart in the Lounge”, “Turn on Petra Outside”.

I am still waiting for someone to write a driver that will cut back on the programming by allowing one to inject variables into the Voice Scenes driver and thus be able to say “Play X in Y” where you list all the possible values for X and Y and when it runs, you have access to X and Y in the programming (or an ind number representing this).  This would make the task trivial and I would probably increase the 20 or so combinations that I have painstakingly programmed to 100 over night!

[timelinex]

35 minutes ago, South Africa C4 user said:

This! It just takes some thought, planning and time.  I use Alexa to control music throughout my house.  It is all played via Tidal through C4 but the commands are given via Alexa and the Voice Scenes driver.  I have things like “turn on music in the bedroom”, “turn on Whiteheart in the bedroom”, “Turn on Whiteheart in the Lounge”, “Turn on Petra Outside”.

I am still waiting for someone to write a driver that will cut back on the programming by allowing one to inject variables into the Voice Scenes driver and thus be able to say “Play X in Y” where you list all the possible values for X and Y and when it runs, you have access to X and Y in the programming (or an ind number representing this).  This would make the task trivial and I would probably increase the 20 or so combinations that I have painstakingly programmed to 100 over night!

Yep!

Also, you may already know this but I only mention it since all your examples use the "turn on" phrase. You can make some commands ALOT more intuitive by using Alexa Routines and having them trigger scenes. With routines you can program ANY phrase to trigger things, without the "turn on". You just have to be mindful of the phrase not sounding too much like a built in phrase or else it sometimes may trigger the built in functionality (like Alexa bye bye , would sometimes trigger what you want but other times you would have alexa reply to you with a bye).

 

So for example when I say "Alexa, next song". That runs the programming to play the next song on the station.

35 minutes ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Tidal

Hmm, never heard of Tidal. It's like Pandora ? What are the benefits over Pandora or Spotify?

[Don Cohen]

1 hour ago, timelinex said:

Also, you may already know this but I only mention it since all your examples use the "turn on" phrase. You can make some commands ALOT more intuitive by using Alexa Routines and having them trigger scenes. With routines you can program ANY phrase to trigger things, without the "turn on".

Yes, I've found this to be quite helpful in making the Voice Commands with Alexa much easier to remember and use.

Have you discovered a way to do this with Google Assistant?  Last time I looked, it wasn't possible.  I have programmed a Google Assistant Voice Scene in Control4 that will open my garage door, unlock the door to my house, and turn on selected lights.  When I'm driving home, I'm using Android Auto in my car, and so can activate this by Voice when I'm getting near home.  It works awesome, but the downside is I have to use the phrase "Turn On..." to initiate the action, which is not intuitive, rather than "Open" or something along those lines.

[South Africa C4 user]

18 hours ago, timelinex said:

Yep!

Also, you may already know this but I only mention it since all your examples use the "turn on" phrase. You can make some commands ALOT more intuitive by using Alexa Routines and having them trigger scenes. With routines you can program ANY phrase to trigger things, without the "turn on". You just have to be mindful of the phrase not sounding too much like a built in phrase or else it sometimes may trigger the built in functionality (like Alexa bye bye , would sometimes trigger what you want but other times you would have alexa reply to you with a bye).

 

So for example when I say "Alexa, next song". That runs the programming to play the next song on the station.

Hmm, never heard of Tidal. It's like Pandora ? What are the benefits over Pandora or Spotify?

Unfortunately Alexa Routines are only available on the Alexa App and not via the web interface.  South Africa is not a “supported” country, so we can only access via the web interface and not the App... hopefully that will Chaney one day!

The Control4 Tidal interface is much better than the Spotify one (or was when I compared them a year or 18 months back).  Tidal and Deezer had the best intefaces and Tidal (reportedly) had better quality music.  I never looked at Pandora and things may have changed since I did my comparisons!

[timelinex]

11 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Unfortunately Alexa Routines are only available on the Alexa App and not via the web interface.  South Africa is not a “supported” country, so we can only access via the web interface and not the App... hopefully that will Chaney one day!

The Control4 Tidal interface is much better than the Spotify one (or was when I compared them a year or 18 months back).  Tidal and Deezer had the best intefaces and Tidal (reportedly) had better quality music.  I never looked at Pandora and things may have changed since I did my comparisons!

Have you thought about downloading the app through a proxy? If it's not a big deal to you then might be a hassle. But with a $50 phone (or old phone you don't use) and signing up under USA proxy, you could have much more intuitive commands. You may even be able to run an android emulator on your computer, but I'm not 100% sure.

[South Africa C4 user]

13 hours ago, timelinex said:

Have you thought about downloading the app through a proxy? If it's not a big deal to you then might be a hassle. But with a $50 phone (or old phone you don't use) and signing up under USA proxy, you could have much more intuitive commands. You may even be able to run an android emulator on your computer, but I'm not 100% sure.

Yeah... I do need to get round to getting this right... I have briefly tried a couple of times and run into obstacles each time.  This December is probably a good time to try again!

[Mike_S101]

Yeah... I do need to get round to getting this right... I have briefly tried a couple of times and run into obstacles each time.  This December is probably a good time to try again!

Just make your address in the states and when you deliver something send it as a gift. We use the Alexa app for everything including routines with no issues


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[zaphod]

On 12/15/2019 at 11:13 AM, South Africa C4 user said:

This! It just takes some thought, planning and time.  I use Alexa to control music throughout my house.  It is all played via Tidal through C4 but the commands are given via Alexa and the Voice Scenes driver.  I have things like “turn on music in the bedroom”, “turn on Whiteheart in the bedroom”, “Turn on Whiteheart in the Lounge”, “Turn on Petra Outside”.

I am still waiting for someone to write a driver that will cut back on the programming by allowing one to inject variables into the Voice Scenes driver and thus be able to say “Play X in Y” where you list all the possible values for X and Y and when it runs, you have access to X and Y in the programming (or an ind number representing this).  This would make the task trivial and I would probably increase the 20 or so combinations that I have painstakingly programmed to 100 over night!

Sounds interesting, but can you use this to play specific songs/albums or just pre-existing playlists or other pre-defined music.  For example, could you say "Alexa, Play Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd in the Living room" wihtout having DSOTM pre-programmed in C4?

[South Africa C4 user]

10 hours ago, Mike_S101 said:

Just make your address in the states and when you deliver something send it as a gift. We use the Alexa app for everything including routines with no issues


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Sorry... being dumb... ae you saying make the Amazon delivery address in the USA? That would be easy. Can I then get the iOS app directly from Amazon? My problem has always been the Apple App Store!

[South Africa C4 user]

10 hours ago, zaphod said:

Sounds interesting, but can you use this to play specific songs/albums or just pre-existing playlists or other pre-defined music.  For example, could you say "Alexa, Play Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd in the Living room" wihtout having DSOTM pre-programmed in C4?

Unfortunately not, you would need to program each song into C4 (not worth it!).  I have done it for numerous artists and playlists.

[sonic30101]

10 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Unfortunately not, you would need to program each song into C4 (not worth it!).  I have done it for numerous artists and playlists.

Putting in an hardwired echo/input or a Sonos connect or port saves the programming of each artist or playlist. Won't be native content but works nicely for voice control when set up properly

[zaphod]

Thanks - that's what I thought.  I have to work on setting this up properly.  Does anyone have a doc on how to set up the Alexa groups when used with a matrix amp?