Making Voice Control Smarter (both Alexa and Google)

[Time2Jet]

6 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Use the native skills for devices that support them. Disable them in the Control4 skill.

Think of voice scenes as virtual devices.

Thanks Mitch.  Voice scenes worked perfectly.

[ecschnei]

So what would be the best practices for the following scenario:

I would like my google home voice controls to be different from my wife...for example when I say I'm leaving I would like my garage door to close and lock the house, but when my wife says it I would like her garage door to close and lock the house.

Any thoughts?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Don Cohen]

1 hour ago, ecschnei said:

So what would be the best practices for the following scenario:

I would like my google home voice controls to be different from my wife...for example when I say I'm leaving I would like my garage door to close and lock the house, but when my wife says it I would like her garage door to close and lock the house.

Any thoughts?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

I've implemented a strategy related to what you're wanting.  I have each of our Garage Doors with a different name (I got real creative, so Garage Number 1 and Garage Number 2  ), so when either of us are coming home, via Android Auto and Google Assistant, we activate a Google Assistant Voice Scene (either Turn On Garage Number 1 or Turn on Garage Number 2), and the appropriate garage door opens, along with unlocking the door to the house, and turning on the desired lights.

When leaving, I don't have this automated, and just press the button to close it.  I guess I could put in a timer, but I think I'd rather do this manually, and see that it has actually closed.  But you should be able to do something along what I've done for leaving, as I've done for returning.

[ecschnei]

I was wondering if I needed to have her Google Assistant. Send over a pushover command that is specific to her. Because Google should voice recognize her. And then I could get it to activate. I just wasn't sure if other people have had some experience with the voice recognition part of Google Assistant to get more user based control. Sorry for rambling.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[c4toys]

On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2020 at 11:09 AM, Aayush Arya said:

Man, that's so frustrating! It's such a terrible experience to always have to give long winded commands like "Alexa, set second bedroom bathroom pendant to 60%", or something else along those lines. How do you guys deal with a large house with multiple rooms and bathrooms?

 

what about lighting scenes to achieve this and alexa firing the macros, relax 50%, arrive 100%, sleep 25%, just a thought

[rolldog]

On 1/15/2020 at 5:06 AM, msgreenf said:

It's just turn on the lights.  The dot in that group will turn on all lights in that group when it hears turn on the lights.

you can only shorten the request if you are talking to the dot in that group. If you are talking to the dot in master and trying to turn off the laundry group you say turn off the laundry lights and it will turn off all lights with a single command.

poor mans version of what you are doing with a sonos with lower quality

I don’t have a Sonos but have 7 different Alexa devices in 7 different rooms, along with another handful of rooms without an Alexa device. I have been trying to find someone who could set this up for me so when someone tells Alexa, “Play **********” it will play through the speakers in the ceiling instead of the crappy Echo speakers..I asked my dealer about setting this up for me years ago, he had no clue how to do it,was fired a year ago, the guy who took his place said he could do it,, but here it is another year later and nothing is done.  If someone can set this up for me, I will pay you handsomely

[msgreenf]

You can sorta do what you want but not 100%. Message me

[chopedogg88]

should be pretty simple, I can help you as well if Mitch can't.  Just need an Echo in the rack, connected to your audio matrix, and you can set that as the default speaker to play out of

[msgreenf]

Just now, chopedogg88 said:

should be pretty simple, I can help you as well if Mitch can't.  Just need an Echo in the rack, connected to your audio matrix, and you can set that as the default speaker to play out of

I am pretty busy - Ari is awesome and can do a great job!

[chopedogg88]

haha thanks!  I'm busy too!  but I like the sound of being paid handsomely

[zaphod]

But this generally takes two commands, does it not?  One command to initiate playback "Alexa, play Add it Up by the Violent Femmes in the Matrix"  and another command select the audio source "Alexa, Turn on Kitchen Echo".  The exception to this being when you have a zone automatically triggered, but you can only do that with one zone.  The first command kicks of an actions within Alexa while the second command kicks of a command within Control4.

I have set this up with Alexa but IMHO you are better off initiating playback using something like Spotify Connect as it gives you more control since you can then add any other audio zone to this and your C4 Nav can display the music being played.  The latter point may not apply to you if all of your audio zones are fed from one matrix amp/switch.

If you are in the iOS world then you can also use Siri to initiate Spotify playback.  But it will still be a multi-step process.  Unless there is a way for Siri to set a Spotify Connect playback device.

[msgreenf]

40 minutes ago, zaphod said:

But this generally takes two commands, does it not?  One command to initiate playback "Alexa, play Add it Up by the Violent Femmes in the Matrix"  and another command select the audio source "Alexa, Turn on Kitchen Echo".  The exception to this being when you have a zone automatically triggered, but you can only do that with one zone.  The first command kicks of an actions within Alexa while the second command kicks of a command within Control4.

yes

[chopedogg88]

Not necessarily

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[zaphod]

@chopedogg88 - How do you do it with one command, other than using Audio triggers?  I understand how you can use it to start a specific playlist, but not any particular song/album that the user requests with their voice.

[drmark12pa]

I have just tried doing this setup but cannot get a simple light in my Master Bathroom to turn on.

1) I have made sure the Master Bath light is set as a light and not a switch

2) I've made sure it is enabled via MyControl4.com as I had it disabled since I was using Ari's driver for Master Bathroom Light command.

3) I've added the light to a group called Master Bathroom and assigned the Alexa in the Master Bathroom to this group as well.

When I tell the Alexa in the Master Bathroom to "Alexa, turn on light" she says "device is not responding).

I've tried everything I can think of and this should be fairly basic  but is not working as it should seem.

I have each of my light's named according to room. ie Master Bathroom light, Master Bedroom light, etc

Does the light have to be renamed to the generic name of LIGHT for this to work?    

I've wasted 2 hours trying to figure this out and it's not working as proposed and I'm ready to go back to just saying Turn On/Off Master Bathroom light....

[Baubas Cat]

Login to your Alexa (app) account on your phone. Click the menu in the upper left corner and go to skills. Go to your skills, Control4 and if it's enabled, disable it. Last enable it.

[drmark12pa]

I now see what the issue is/was:

You have to say, "Alexa, turn on lights (***PLURAL***)".  If you say "LIGHT" it will not respond!  You have to say "LIGHTS".

That being said, the delay for turning on/off is quite considerable.  I think I'll go back to using Ari's driver for this again and just program the light.  

Is there any way to speed response time up at all?  I'm currently using the most up to date software/firmware running on an EA5.

[drmark12pa]

I'm typically using the Epic driver for Alexa but just noticed in the C4 Voice Scene documentation that Version 15 and 72 have added significant new commands that it would appear to not be available in other drivers even.  

So with this new driver, it would appear I can now change channels, fast forward, rewind, pause, etc?

[TexasBill]

On ‎1‎/‎14‎/‎2020 at 5:11 AM, msgreenf said:

Lot's of questions and lots of lack of information on how to make things better.

Good news with both Alexa and Google with the NATIVE control4 integration - no 3rd party drivers, you can now talk to the dot/mini/whatever and say turn the lights on/off and it will know the room you are in and turn the lights on/off!  Awesome right?  I know this post is going to lead to more questions but I'm tired of all the random questions.

Alexa

In order to make this work in Alexa you have to setup Groups.  (Think of groups like rooms).

Each Group has a prefered Alexa device (which can be any generation echo or spot) - ONLY ONE

Here are instructions on how to setup Groups - https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201749250

The key to a group is a few things:

1) Pick the right Alexa device - you can only pick one

2) Pick everything you want that Alexa device to control and add it to the group

3) KEY STEP - DON'T SKIP - Control4 devices come in as "switches" not lights, you have to change that for every lighting load.  You have to go to all devices, the find the device, click gears and change the type to Light from switch and save.  You must do this for every load.

Bonus Feature: You can also call a group by a name, so if you are in the living room you can tell it to turn the master bedroom lights on/off

 

Google

WIth Google you do much the same.  You setup rooms in the google Home app, add all your devices including more then 1 Google Mini/Nest Mini/Google Home/Nest home to a room.  THen when you are in that room - Googl turn the lights on off.

 

Is this helpful? Should I explain it more step by step?

 

I am available for consultations.

 

OK - I seem to have no issue with my living room and dining room and living room - but my media room dos not want to behave.

I have created in Alexa app a group called Media room.

I changed all items to lights. (critical step)

The app allows me to turn on and off the entire group with a button on the group screen.

When I ask Alexa to turn on or off the Media Room she says OK. and nothing happens.

She sees the group - I disabled and re-enabled the skill so Control 4 is also connected.

What am I missing?

Bill

[msgreenf]

I think media is a reserved word. Name the room different name

[TexasBill]

On ‎4‎/‎25‎/‎2020 at 6:04 AM, msgreenf said:

I think media is a reserved word. Name the room different name

Renamed it to be Family Room -

The statement - Alexa - Turn off Family Room results in her saying - OK - Here is Alarm.com - Sorry - you don't have permission to service that command.

They are all LIghts, not switches. When you push the button on the Alexa app the lights all go on or off so it is not a connectivity issue.

I have Alarm.com but I do not use it to turn on or off anything in my house...

 

[zaphod]

It would be awesome if this could be used for AV controls and AV transport.  For example "Alexa, turn on Netflix" and Netflix would turn on.  And "Alex, pause Netflix" would send the pause command.

Is the reason that this does not work now a limitation of the C4 implemention of Alexa Skills or is this due to something on Amazon's side?  If it is the former surely this is something that C4 should be working on adding.

[zaphod]

On 3/1/2020 at 1:03 PM, chopedogg88 said:

haha thanks!  I'm busy too!  but I like the sound of being paid handsomely

Ari - any possibility of adding this group functionality to your Echo driver?  I am now back up and running again with V200 of your driver with a Gen1 Echo on OS3.  It would be great to be able to not have to use Room names when creating Trigger Names.  So I could say "Alexa, Turn Netflix on" rather than "Alexa, turn Kitchen Netflix On" and have to set up triggers for each room with a TV.

[Don Cohen]

23 minutes ago, zaphod said:

It would be awesome if this could be used for AV controls and AV transport.  For example "Alexa, turn on Netflix" and Netflix would turn on.  And "Alex, pause Netflix" would send the pause command.

Is the reason that this does not work now a limitation of the C4 implemention of Alexa Skills or is this due to something on Amazon's side?  If it is the former surely this is something that C4 should be working on adding.

Maybe you're talking about something more complicated than this, but I have part of this implemented using the Alexa skill, no special driver.  First, the device is set up in Composer Pro, configuring the MiniApp (on Roku in my Theater, on Sony TV in my Family Room) for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.  I then go to MyControl4, Voice Control section, find the relevant 'Device,' enable it, edit the name to whatever I want, and finally do the Discovery in the Alexa App.

So I can say, 'Alexa turn on Netflix, Alexa turn on Theater Room Amazon' etc., and they turn on.  At that point I find it easier to just use the SR260 for pause or other transport controls. But for the most part, I use my Echo dots to turn on whatever source I have in either room.  I find it about 90% reliable - sometimes I'll get the "x device isn't responding" although as it says that, the device then executes 99% of the time.

As I said, you might be talking about something more complex than this, but this works for me.

[zaphod]

Thanks Don I will try that.  I agree that using the remote is normally easier but there can be times when you can't use a remote.  Like if you are coooking and your hands are gooey, or you are in the swimming pool.  In those instances it would be great to be able to use voice control to skip to the next track or whatever.