So I took the plunge and installed Node-Red and the local Alexa skill. It was very easy to set up and works pretty good. One question I have for the more experienced users out there is, how would I program a flow that turns a switch/input_boolean on or off based on what I say to Alexa? So right now, I just have it toggle but if it’s already on and I ask Alexa “turn on the Fan” if the state is on, it shouldn’t toggle and turn off. Any ideas?
Hi @Jer78, if you set it up like below using a switch node using ‘is true’ and ‘is false’ this does what you want
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It show you in the documentation using the actual Alexa commands which is what I used…
Always pays to RTFM 
No, people’s first option nowadays seems to be go onto a user forum and ask questions where they already have the answer right in front of them. I’ll let you off this one though as I actually posted much the same question before, thanks to the time difference, I managed to find the answer myself and delete the question 
Probably like you I was trying to follow general NR guides not the one specific to the Alexa skill…or maybe not 
The ones that really do my head in are people who can’t be bothered to Google something themselves and get an instant answer, they’d rather ask it on a forum and then bitch when they don’t get an instant answer…what’s that all about?
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Thanks @Bobby_Nobble and I’ll let you off being the forum policeman because I know you are sometimes hot under the collar but generally a good guy
But seriously, I agree, there’s a lot of simple questions answered on the forum with a simple search. Maybe it was because it was late and I didn’t see anything that popped out. You should have kept your question live as I may have seen it! Cheers
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I just have a problem with idiots ( I don’t consider you one ) so had to delete it so I didn’t have a problem with myself 
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It doesn’t look like this works with the node-red-contrib-alexa-local so I’m assuming it’s just the node-red-contrib-Alexa-home-skill that passes along the payload. I was hoping to avoid the cloud and use the local node.
At least you don’t need to jump through any security hoops with Alexa.
I can’t get the Echo to pick up the local version, are you using an older Amazon device?
That’s probably why I struggled then, and possibly the same reason I can only get the cloud version working. I only upgraded to the show because they were on offer at two for £160 the other morning for a short while. I sold the second one and my original Echo for £175 but jumping through hoops now to get it back to what it was due to this fake hue detection not working on newer devices 
@snarby It’s odd because I thought the addition of my Shows killed emulated_hue because I haven’t been able to get that working again since the summer.
Its definitely something to do with the Show because it was working great until I swapped over. I’ve tried everything I can find on the internet and nothing works. It can’t pick up either emulated hue or Ha-Bridge
No, it’s just the Shows can’t detect it, Dots and other older ones still can and then the Shows can control it.
I’ll wait a few weeks and get by with the Node-Red cloud version, see if it gets fixed and if not will buy an Echo Dot. Looking at the github for ha-bridge he is aware of the issue so hopeful for a solution soon
