Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[brobin]

As I get out of bed each morning I say, "Alexa, turn off shades."

This may be well known, but FWIW you can create an Alexa Routine, so you can say "Alexa 'close' (or lower) the shades". and a second to open (or raise) the shades.  The words "Alexa Turn ON", "Turn OFF, "DIM" etc. queue Alexa servers that it is a Home Automation (skill) command. "Open", "Close" do not. The Routine allows you to use any phrase to perform specific tasks. ie "Alexa make it dark".

I didn't know about Alexa Routines but I'll be setting some up now. I have several things I'd like to use other words for. Thank you for the heads up! 

[Tuicemen]

Activate and deactivate work instead of on/off but the routines are the way to go.

[soxfan1966]

Not sure if this is exactly related or not to the original post but I seem to be having a similar issue.

I have my X10 Hub up and running and if I access Home Genie from my desktop or phone, log in (note: I have saved passwords in my Chrome browser for these sites too, so once I enter it once it does not ask me again).

Once the page loads I can turn things off an on via the HG web page.

If I try and use Alexa - sometimes it works right away, sometimes it takes a few seconds and then works but replies that the device isn't responding or doesn't work and replies the device isn't responding.

If it doesnt work, and I log into HG via the desktop or phone and then try again it works.

So I am wondering if there is something funky with the saved passwords or perhaps once I close the browser session (either on the desktop or my phone) that it is doing something to affect Alexa's ability to stay connected ?

[Tuicemen]

I suspect this is a time out issue in HA-BRIDGE. There are a few settings you can play with in HA-BRIDGE  but it maybe better to post a issue on Github. As BWSsystems may have a more direct way of fixing this. Since a pressing of the test buttons never seem to fail I don't believe it is a ossue with HG.

[soxfan1966]

I did some investigating and it seems others have had a similar issue where there is a timeout issue w Alexa (5 seconds). 

Based on this example - I can try it out and see if it works
https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge/issues/364

You'll need to return a 200 response code in your PHP, try adding header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK"); to the first line of your file.

[soxfan1966]

That didnt seem to work, or at least not the way I tried it.  I added this to the Headers section for on of my x10 devices in Ha Brdge:

["HTTP/1.1 200 OK"]

Then below that was the line for the password (similarly in [])

So not sure if the format of that needs to be different or if that isnt the issue.  Still seems to be some kind of timeout issue between Alex, Ha Bridge and HomeGenie.

[Tuicemen]

In My tests the HG Echo Bridge works much more reliable and faster then HA-Bridge for Alexa. I suspect the reason for this is the extra http calls required using HA-Bridge and the fact that it has many more possible options to sort through.