I’m about to embark on trying to integrate Alexa with HASS. As I can see it there are two very different approaches to do so:
http://appdaemon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/APPGUIDE.html#alexa-support
Are there specific pros and cons to choosing one approach over the other?
I’ve never found anything that I wanted to do with alexa integration that required appdaemon.
The regular skill integration works great for me.
The AppDaemon support is interesting if you are already an AppDaemon user but it’s not a good enough reason on its own to install AppDaemon unless you want to do some more complex automations and trigger them via Voice.
Right now I’m basically getting ramped up and have been trying to decide if I should focus on learning the standard automations or AppDaemon (I haven’t really done either yet). My background is in programming so AppDaemon “code” actually looks more normal than the automation syntax.
I’m not a programmer and I have some appdaemon automations and a lot of HASS automations. Since I’m not a programmer, that appdaemon ones are tough but I’ve been able to do some really cool stuff.
Recently I have been unhappy with my Alexa integration and have looked at switching to AppDaemon for it. The documentation is pretty good but for someone without a lot of programming experience Alexa is more than a simple appdaemon “app”. I think the benefits of Alexa+AppDaemon are really the python. As your Alexa automations get longer and more involved at some point the AppDaemon method ends up being cleaner and more flexible.
Anyway, If you are a programmer and you see yourself wanting to write some very complex automations then you will eventually have to use AppDaemon. There is no way around it.
HASS in itself can do a lot of complex stuff especially with some creativity, but AppDaemon is a whole nother level.