I wish to thank you for sharing your approach for adding room-awareness to Alexa. I’ve taken what you’ve presented and created a version that is tailored to my needs.
- I don’t have fans with speed-levels, they can only be turned on/off.
- I have five Echo devices (one Amazon Echo Dot and four ecobee Switch+) located in five different rooms. I want each one to have a default light with the ability to control its brightness.
- Four of the Echo devices will also have a default fan (two separate bathroom fans and the furnace fan).
To meet these requirements, the resulting flow would be quite elaborate if I chose to create nodes for each action. To simplify the flow, I created function nodes that generate a single message packet that can support both fans and lights.
The following spoken phrases are supported:
- Turn on/off the fan/light.
- Turn on/off fan/light.
- Turn the fan/light on/off.
- Turn fan/light on/off.
- Set the light to <level>.
- Set light to <level>.
The brightness level of a light is limited to increments of five (zero, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, … one hundred). If someone asks to set the light to thirty three, the flow will end at the first function node .
Within the received phrase, Alexa reports the brightness level using words, not numbers. The first function node (“Parse”) converts the words to numbers (because the command to set a light’s level requires a numeric value). The conversion is performed using a map. It’s possible to enhance the map by adding words like “low”, “medium”, and “high”, or even “night time”, with corresponding numeric values. Otherwise, there’s no need for the end-user to change anything within the first function node.
The second function node (“Route”) determines which Echo heard the spoken phrase and then specifies the associated fan or light. This is the only function node that an end-user needs to customize. You must enter the serial number of each Echo (displayed in Alexa’s web app) and specify the exact name of each light and fan.
-
The initial and final nodes must be configured with your Amazon account as per the instructions for node-red-contrib-alexa-remote2.
-
Naturally, to have this work, node-red-contrib-amazon-echo also needs to be used to make “Fan” and “Light” devices known to Alexa. These nodes are not included in the following flow.
Copy the following flow and import it into Node-Red:
[
{
"id": "7c21f2b6.c338f4",
"type": "tab",
"label": "Room-aware Alexa",
"disabled": false,
"info": ""
},
{
"id": "857cc38e.e8cbd8",
"type": "function",
"z": "7c21f2b6.c338f4",
"name": "Parse",
"func": "// Determine if verb is 'turn' or 'set'\nvar phrase = msg.payload.description.summary;\n\nvar parts = phrase.match(/(turn|set) t?h?e? ?(fan|light)/);\nif (parts) {\n msg.action = parts[1];\n msg.device = parts[2];\n}\nelse {\n parts = phrase.match(/(turn|set) (on|off) t?h?e? ?\\b(fan|light)\\b/);\n if (parts) {\n msg.action = parts[1];\n msg.device = parts[3];\n }\n}\n\n// Process verb\nif (parts) {\n if (msg.action == \"turn\") {\n // Verb is 'turn'\n // Convert verb to Alexa action: turnOn or turnOff\n parts = phrase.match(/\\b(on|off)\\b/);\n if (parts) {\n msg.action = msg.action + parts[1].replace(\"o\", \"O\");\n msg.value = 0; // dummy value\n return msg;\n }\n }\n else {\n // Verb is 'set'\n // Convert verb to Alexa action: setBrightness\n // parts = phrase.match(/set t?h?e? ?light t?o? ?(\\w+ ?\\w+)/);\n parts = phrase.match(/set t?h?e? ?light to (\\w+ ?\\w+)/);\n if (parts) {\n msg.action = \"setBrightness\";\n\n // Convert light level from words to numbers\n let words = new Map([\n [\"zero\", 0],\n [\"five\", 5],\n [\"ten\", 10],\n [\"fifteen\", 15],\n [\"twenty\", 20],\n [\"twenty five\", 25],\n [\"thirty\", 30],\n [\"thirty five\", 35],\n [\"forty\", 40],\n [\"forty five\", 45],\n [\"fifty\", 50],\n [\"fifty five\", 55],\n [\"sixty\", 60],\n [\"sixty five\", 65],\n [\"seventy\", 70],\n [\"seventy five\", 70],\n [\"eighty\", 80],\n [\"eighty five\", 85],\n [\"ninety\", 90],\n [\"ninety five\", 95],\n [\"hundred\", 100],\n [\"one hundred\", 100],\n ]);\n\n var tmp = words.get(parts[1]);\n if (tmp) {\n msg.value = tmp;\n return msg;\n }\n }\n }\n}\n// Unable to find matching verb or invalid action type or invalid brightness level\nreturn null;\n\n",
"outputs": 1,
"noerr": 0,
"x": 350,
"y": 160,
"wires": [
[
"a6c16849.84555"
]
]
},
{
"id": "e5447e3e.4e78e",
"type": "alexa-remote-smarthome",
"z": "7c21f2b6.c338f4",
"name": "",
"account": "501c7e4b.3357b",
"config": {
"option": "action",
"value": []
},
"outputs": 1,
"x": 870,
"y": 160,
"wires": [
[]
]
},
{
"id": "a6c16849.84555",
"type": "function",
"z": "7c21f2b6.c338f4",
"name": "Route",
"func": "if (msg.payload.deviceSerialNumber == \"a1\") {\n // Master Bathroom\n if (msg.device == \"fan\") {\n msg.entity = \"Master Bathroom Fan\";\n }\n else {\n msg.entity = \"Master Bathroom Light\";\n }\n return msg;\n}\nelse if (msg.payload.deviceSerialNumber == \"b2\") {\n // Guest Bathroom\n if (msg.device == \"fan\") {\n msg.entity = \"Guest Bathroom Fan\";\n }\n else {\n msg.entity = \"Guest Bathroom Light\";\n }\n return msg;\n}\nelse if (msg.payload.deviceSerialNumber == \"c3\") {\n // Kitchen\n if (msg.device == \"fan\") {\n msg.entity = \"Furnace Fan\";\n }\n else {\n msg.entity = \"Kitchen Light\";\n }\n return msg;\n}\nelse if (msg.payload.deviceSerialNumber == \"d4\") {\n // Living Room\n if (msg.device == \"fan\") {\n msg.entity = \"Furnace Fan\";\n }\n else {\n msg.entity = \"Living Room Light\";\n }\n return msg;\n}\nelse if (msg.payload.deviceSerialNumber == \"e5\") {\n // Garage\n if (msg.device == \"light\") {\n msg.entity = \"Garage Light\";\n return msg;\n }\n}\n// Unknown Echo or unsupported device\nreturn null;\n",
"outputs": 1,
"noerr": 0,
"x": 490,
"y": 160,
"wires": [
[
"deda6b87.de2518"
]
]
},
{
"id": "deda6b87.de2518",
"type": "template",
"z": "7c21f2b6.c338f4",
"name": "Create payload",
"field": "payload",
"fieldType": "msg",
"format": "handlebars",
"syntax": "mustache",
"template": "[{\"entity\":\"{{entity}}\", \"action\":\"{{action}}\", \"value\":{{value}}}]",
"output": "json",
"x": 660,
"y": 160,
"wires": [
[
"e5447e3e.4e78e"
]
]
},
{
"id": "d245c878.64fbf8",
"type": "alexa-remote-event",
"z": "7c21f2b6.c338f4",
"name": "",
"account": "501c7e4b.3357b",
"event": "ws-device-activity",
"x": 170,
"y": 160,
"wires": [
[
"857cc38e.e8cbd8"
]
]
},
{
"id": "501c7e4b.3357b",
"type": "alexa-remote-account",
"z": "",
"name": "",
"authMethod": "proxy",
"proxyOwnIp": "HOSTNAMEorIPADDRESS",
"proxyPort": "3456",
"cookieFile": "/home/username/.node-red/alexa.proxy",
"refreshInterval": "3",
"alexaServiceHost": "pitangui.amazon.com",
"amazonPage": "amazon.com",
"acceptLanguage": "en-US",
"userAgent": "",
"useWsMqtt": "on",
"autoInit": "on"
}
]