Hi all
I’m new to Alexa and unsure about the best concept of Alexa integration with Home Assistant. The idea is, that all 4 persons in my home can use Alexa Smart Home functions for the entire house. Furthermore, it should be possible that all 4 persons use its own Amazon Account as well for personal stuff. I have seen the Family option, but this could be problematic, as we have 4 adults (2 parents, 2 girls over 18). If i’m right, this will not work with Family Account. It is likely, that we use more than one Alexa Smart Speaker.
Can you recommend a concept for my requirements?
Thanks!
Amazon says on Homepage: An Amazon Household can include up to two adults 18 years of age or older (this includes yourself), four teenagers 13-17 years old, and four children aged 12 and under
Still waiting for access to my daughter and my son’s phone to test. THis will be a number of days - they’re grown and live away.
So you’re basically setup the way I am. I have an Amazon Family account (3 people, myself, wife, adult child still mooching on my account) I’ve connected my amazon account to HA (Through Nabu Casa).
Next step is to connect each individual User through NabuCasa to Alexa. Theoretically I should be able to hook up two or more Amazon accounts to the Same NabuCasa instance. (This is next test with Wife’s phone) This should be pretty easy and doable. I have not seen any indication a single NabuCasa instance cannot connect to multiple amazon accounts. - but again, we test. If no, this is a showstopper for your case.
If it works either my or my wife’s account should be able to 'turn on the insert specific unique device here that is only connected through HomeAssistant no matter which account we’re actively using. Additionally using voice profiles should cause the system to automagically recognize the user and pump the request through the appropriate HA skill connection.
The trick here is the kids. you said you want them to be able to use their own music. The only way to do that is for them to be able to login to your Amazon device - either through a child account or through shared access… And when you do what is their experience.
It comes down to - Can an external guest with a valid HA skill connection use their own instance of that skill when logged into SOMEONE ELSE’S Echo using Amazon Echo Guest Connect? I think it’s yes but again, I have to test. The guest Connect feature requires a unique AMZ account with a valid phone number AND a voice profile. (The real phone number and voice profile make this a very heavy lift for a test account. This is much easier testing an ACTUAL account.) My son’s account is perfectly suited for this as it is setup properly with phone and voice profile and he is NOT in my AMZ household.
This test:
Use his phone and AMZ account to connect him to MY Nabu instance with my NabuCasa creds and the HA skill. Make sure he can see devices populate, then
Rename one specific test device in HIS Amazon account only. Give it a very unique name. (For this I was going to rename HIS instance of our ‘hurricane lamp’ to ‘stupid lamp’
Configure Amazon Connect for guests on MY Amazon account then use Alexa Connect to log my son in. (he needs a valid voice profile and unique phone number)
THEN have him come over and try to ‘turn on the stupid lamp’
If the hurricane lamp activates - it works - this is how I’d configure your kids.
If the hurricane lamp Does NOT work and Alexa instead gives the ‘i’m confused’ response. It means it’s not using my son’s unique HA connection and instead piggybacking mine. - In which case it may still not be a bad thing, they just wont be able to customize the names and use them as voice prompts.