you should probably more afraid for firmware updates then to hope for them.
most of the time it just breaks stuff.
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probably you have right but I have no choice , Firmware on my amazon plus is an italian beta version, I need to upgrade to next version in all case, I don’t think they spend time and money to stop this project , all in all now alexa tts not working on plus , can be the same after upgrade .
i know we have no choice 
and we are all hackers, so the chance that it breaks at some point is there.
but then we find another way
I’ve been using this without any issues for months. Thanks for the hard work. I was wondering if anyone had any way of knowing which echo received a voice command either via this tool, or some other way.
Basically I’d like to be able to say to my kitchen echo, “Alexa, xxx”, which in turn turns on an input Boolean, which then runs an alexa tts script, which provides some status. I do this now and it works great. But if I’m in the bedroom and ask, of course the script runs with my kitchen echo (or whichever one I have it set to run). I have a few scripts that do the TTS to multiple echos, but would be cool/nice to be able to have it reply with TTS to “last active echo”?
the script that started this is in this topic
and that also has the possibility to ask what the last active alexa was.
Thanks, I have been following that thread as well. Defnitely a bit more complex, but does seem to offer a few things. I did a quick skim/search and did not see any comments about the last used alexa. Can you point me to where I might review the script. Thanks
i can give you the link to the original script in german):
the command he added in februar ist:
alexa_remote_control.sh -lastalexa
I’m loving this. My only issue is the time it takes for TTS to play on my Echo. I have an automation setup so that when someone presses my Ring Doorbell, my Echo plays a message saying someone is at the door. In most cases the door has been answered and the person has already been let in and then the TTS message comes through.
This could very be the time it takes for the TTS message to be sent to the Alexa servers, processed into an audio file, and then sent back.
Does anyone know of a way to have a locally hosted audio file played to an Echo?
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that isnt possible.
its possible to play a short mediafile on alexa in a custom skill, the problem is that you only can trigger that custom skill by saying something to alexa.
the TTS way we use is an hack from the alexa app and from the alexa app you cant play local files.
All good. Thought I’d ask. Oh well. Guess I’ll just deal with the delay. Would be good if it could process on the local AWS servers rather than those in the US.
i would love that possibility myself.
would open up a lot of options.
Not sure if this is related or to this thread or HA in general. However, this is causing Alexa to stop responding to commands until HA is restarted.
An error occured accessing the API: An exception of type ConnectionError occurred. Arguments: (MaxRetryError(“HTTPSConnectionPool(host=‘alexa.amazon.com’, port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/np/player?deviceSerialNumber=G090LF1175150Q4U&deviceType=A3S5BH2HU6VAYF&screenWidth=2560 (Caused by NewConnectionError(’<urllib3.connection.VerifiedHTTPSConnection object at 0x7f8ea265be10>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 110] Operation timed out’,))”,),)
Edited: Appears Alexa is having issues. But, still need to understand the above error…
Could someone take a look and let me know why this script will not work with 2 elements, a doorbell from spotify and an alexa tts both played on same echo dot?
Individually, both work as expected but when combined (see below), it will only play the tts element.
doorbell:
alias: Doorbell
sequence:
- service: media_player.play_media
data:
entity_id: media_player.kitchen_echo_dot
media_content_id : "spotify:track:xyzsdfgkfbksdj"
media_content_type: "SPOTIFY"
- service: media_player.alexa_tts
data_template:
entity_id: media_player.kitchen_echo_dot
message: -> ' Someone has pushed the front gate bell.'OK I think I have a couple of very “cludgy” fixes for the volume problem
I am now running a bit of a Frankenstein configuration. I am running this custom media player and the python script
As we know when the media player goes into standby the volume controls fail to work. So the first “cludge” is to use a binary template to monitor the state of the media player. It is triggered on when the media player goes into standby. This then triggers a shell command which runs
alexa_remote_control.sh -d “echo name” -r “any valid radio station” - e pause
This will take the echo out of standby but is too quick for the radio station to play. As I said “cludgy” it will fill your history and stop the echo going into power standby.
*EDIT After more testing this is not reliable command is too quick, as I said cludgy sorry
The second cludge is to trigger a routine in the Alexa app. You can create multiple routines in the app that change the volume. You can run them with this
alexa_remote_control.sh -d “echo name” -e automation “name of routine”
I code in appdeamon so can supply code if required
First of all thank you very much for sharing this and relentlessly ironing bugs. Since my first failed attempt at running it back in July I’ve been following the progress and today I downloaded VERSION 0.9.5 and pretty much worked right away!
Could you perhaps consider adding the json tracker which works with this component.
custom-components/custom_updater
A component which allows you to track and update custom cards/components and python_scripts - custom-components/custom_updater
It effectively tracks your changes and informs users of changes/upgrades.
thank you again.
I think I ran into something similar.
It might be that the second service is called before the first service has a chance to start thereby negating the first service call.
Try putting a delay for a couple of seconds longer than your play_media call track length.
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I have the same setup but without the delay you are having… Mine is almost instant when the doorbell rings…
I see you are in Australia. How have you managed to get it to be instant? Would you mind sharing your setup? Also, is your echo setup on an AU account or US?
It takes about about a second or so for my chime to sound, and then the echo starts when the chime is finished. That’s how long it takes the echo to process.
Could also be that HA gets the button press from the ring servers, so there is a few trips to US servers before my Echo makes a sound. 
My Amazon account is set to US, I am running HA on PC running Ubuntu so not sure if that would make the diffrence, I have it also pause spotify on the echos if it’s playing so I don’t need to turn it off when people arrive (this is also instant). If you use TTS with the echos is it instant from HA?