Amazon Alexa Smart home skills Home Assistant

Configuration
47

@Bobby_Nobble 100% agree. Now let’s just hope devs are reading this :wink:

1 Like
48

What? I will need to pay for this? That’s a bombshell. I guess Haaska it is for me.

2 Likes
49

I just spent one whole day trying to get Haaska running but failed :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

50

@masterkenobi - take a look here: Haaska help please?
I got very close; and would be happy to help you get to thge same stage - perhaps we can work together to get over the final hurdle…

1 Like
51

Thanks. Will give it a try later. Need to rest awhile.

52

anyway, i just tried the HA cloud. It was amazingly easy. every devices in my HA is discovered just like that (except climate devices). The discovered devices also works well with Alexa-enabled smart home group in Alexa app. Unlike emulated Hue, my TVs are identified as TV, not as light anymore. That means, if I created an Alexa-enabled group and add my devices as follows…

Group name: Living Room (linked to Echo in Living Room)
Device names:

  • Living room lights (device type: light)
  • Living room TV (device type: TV)

I can now tell my Echo in living room to turn on the TV by simply saying “Alexa, turn on TV” instead of “Living Room TV”.

If I do the same for my other Echos in other rooms, for example in my bedroom, I can turn on the bedroom TV using the same command too; “Alexa, turn on TV”.

Unfortunately, it only works for TV and lights. It doesn’t work on fans, speaker and air conditional yet.

53

@masterkenobi I agree, it does work very well with little setup. Can’t get my head around $5 a month for turning on a handful of devices. I’ll be looking at other solutions. Really sucks because I was hopeful on finally getting a real Alexa implementation with this until the price bomb got dropped on us!

1 Like
54

Have you been able to get a cover to work? It discovers my garage fine. I set it as type door and that shows up but Alexa says garage doesn’t support that when I say open the the garage. And she says garage Isint responding if I say turn on garage (emulated hue works perfect with turn on garage)

55

Sorry. I don’t have cover component to play with.

56

Same here. Were you guys able to get the exclusions to work? I tried excluding Automatons but it still brings them in!!

57

It doesn’t work for me too. I exclude every domains and use alexa_hidden: false in customize section to expose those entities I want but it doesn’t work.

58

Well I will stick with Hue emulator until exclusions work. seems cool but not ready for Prime time and specially if the want $5 a month every darn thing should work like a champ!!!

59

@masterkenobi @subnetangel
So here’s what I found with exclusions. It does work but the issue is if you have added it and then try to delete the device from the Alexa app, it doesn’t actually delete them. Log into it from a web browser at Alexa.amazon.com and “forget” the device. Then it will be truly gone and on next discover devices it won’t find anything you’ve excluded in HA. Basically the issue is more with the Alexa app.

60

Yep, they’ve managed to create the same stupid situation as Harmony have with there web and app versions of set up. You can’t do everything in just one and often need both open in front of you to complete something that should be simple.

61

You used to be able to. The recent update to “smart home” on mobile, while added a load of useful features, removed the ability to forget devices.

62

Care to share your cloud config? I’m not able to exclude domains.

63

Do you have to forget HUE in the Alexa app since hue lights are already in home assistant?

64

@accelle

See this for filters using cloud

65

Yeah, I used that before going here. Here’s my config:

  alexa:
    filter:
      include_entities:
        - light.gateway_light_f0b429b44357
        - light.gateway_light_f0b429aa1bab
        - switch.plug_158d00010ac64c
        - switch.xiaomiplug01
        - switch.xiaomi_pstrip01
        - switch.xiaomiplug02
        - switch.xiaomiplug03
        - switch.xiaomiplug04
        - switch.plug_158d0001dbcf86
        - switch.plug_158d0001de7a27
        - sensor.miflora_1_temperature
        - switch.kankun
        - switch.insect_repellant
        - switch.aerisathome
        - switch.workfromhome
        - switch.mqtt_motionsensor_broken
        - switch.synology_nas
        - media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv
        - light.bathroom2
        - sensor.temperature_158d00011823a5
        - sensor.temperature_158d00010f69b0
        - sensor.temperature_158d00010abdd6
        - fan.master_bedroom_purifier
        - light.laundry
        - light.backyard
        - light.frontgate
        - light.fronthouse
        - input_select.follow_me_music
        - light.entertainment
      include_domains:
        - scenes
      exclude_domains:
        - script
        - automation
        - group
        - lock
        - media_player
        - switch
        - cover
        - alert
66

What do you suggest, to use the HUE smart skill and exclude HUE lights from Alexa in Home assistant?