Echo Devices (Alexa) as Media Player - Testers Needed

jriker1 · December 4, 2019, 10:35pm

Well this thread is a bit long but questions.

When I was using OpenHAB and was doing an announcement with TTS I it had a separate volume for notifications that I could control for each Echo device. So if it was playing music it had a separate volume level than a notification. Can we do this?

Also is there a way to access the current volume level of the device or preferably the notification volume, store that, make the announcement, and then set it back to whatever it was at?

Shayne_Bergan · December 5, 2019, 10:42am

Guard alarm not working in latest Beta 0.103.0b0, let me know if you need logs
Looks to be realated to https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/29065

jriker1 · December 5, 2019, 5:37pm

Does this still work for you? Besides not seeing a volume_level attribute with Alexa devices, when I try what you posted I just get 0.0 which is the same if I put anything in for the variable. Like if I put vollllume_level it shows 0.0 still.

maurizio53 · December 5, 2019, 8:05pm

I have three echo devices and only the plus is seen as a speaker, the other two (show and spot) have the same behaviour as yours…

DevScientist · December 6, 2019, 3:55am

Hi All,

I recently installed the newest version of the component and now my “last called” function isn’t updating. I have automations that respond with a text output from the echo where the question was asked, and it’s not working now. The “last called = true” is stuck on one particular echo in the house.

Any ideas?

SpaceCase · December 6, 2019, 4:51pm

Found a way to automate my fire tv to show the front door when the ring doorbell (or any sensor in hassio) is pressed! I created a virtual echo via bespoke.io (an amazon partner) and grouped it with my fire tv stick in smart home devices. Now I can tell it via a message to “show me the front door” and it will come up on the fire tv! I can also send the message “show me the front door on echo show” and it will show it on the show!

It wont talk back as it is a virtual echo, but you could likely send it two messages (the second with a pin) to start a car.

Info found here:
Send Commands to Alexa

maurizio53 · December 6, 2019, 5:30pm

I am getting always when restarting HA these errors:

2019-12-06 19:15:58 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.config_entries] Error setting up entry mauriziofxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx - amazon.it for media_player
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/config_entries.py", line 192, in async_setup
    hass, self
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/media_player/__init__.py", line 340, in async_setup_entry
    return await hass.data[DOMAIN].async_setup_entry(entry)
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 151, in async_setup_entry
    raise ValueError("Config entry has already been setup!")
ValueError: Config entry has already been setup!
2019-12-06 19:15:58 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.config_entries] Error setting up entry mauriziofxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx - amazon.it for alarm_control_panel
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/config_entries.py", line 192, in async_setup
    hass, self
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/alarm_control_panel/__init__.py", line 74, in async_setup_entry
    return await hass.data[DOMAIN].async_setup_entry(entry)
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 151, in async_setup_entry
    raise ValueError("Config entry has already been setup!")
ValueError: Config entry has already been setup!
2019-12-06 19:15:58 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.config_entries] Error setting up entry mauriziofxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx - amazon.it for switch
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/config_entries.py", line 192, in async_setup
    hass, self
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/switch/__init__.py", line 79, in async_setup_entry
    return await hass.data[DOMAIN].async_setup_entry(entry)
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 151, in async_setup_entry
    raise ValueError("Config entry has already been setup!")
ValueError: Config entry has already been setup!
2019-12-06 19:15:58 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.config_entries] Error setting up entry mauriziofxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx - amazon.it for sensor
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/config_entries.py", line 192, in async_setup
    hass, self
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/sensor/__init__.py", line 60, in async_setup_entry
    return await hass.data[DOMAIN].async_setup_entry(entry)
  File "/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 151, in async_setup_entry
    raise ValueError("Config entry has already been setup!")
ValueError: Config entry has already been setup!

How to get rid of them?

And more, one doubt. Is still needed the entry regarding alexa media_player inside configuration.yaml or not?

zsmitchell · December 6, 2019, 10:55pm

Hello all…I am newer than baby yoda here, so bear with me (I DID do extensive searching before I posted)…all that out of the way, here we go…

I have the Alexa integration working, and the alexa.notify script is working on my Echo dot, but NOT on my Ecobee thermostats. As far as I can tell, the Ecobee’s work for everything else (I can see/play the media playing on them, etc)

Is there something that has to be done differently when pushing the (below) script to an ecobee, as opposed to an Echo Dot?

zack_home_announcment:
  alias: Announce Zack is home
  sequence:
  - data:
      data:
        method: speak
        type: announce
      message: Front door is open
      target: media_player.main_floor
    service: notify.alexa_media

Thanks for your input!

~Z

Edit: I did just notice that there is a difference between the Echo Dot and the EcoBee…the Echo dot has “Local Speaker” selected as the source, whereas the EcoBee’s are blank and unselectable.
Could that be an issue?

EDIT 2 - Changed type: ANNOUNCE to type: TTS, and they all magically worked!

flippedcracker · December 7, 2019, 12:03am

I’m getting an error when adding the component:

Platform error notify.alexa_media - cannot import name 'CONF_EMAIL' from 'custom_components.alexa_media' (unknown location)

I’ve added the integration and logged in with the captcha. Do I need to do something else?

echopage · December 8, 2019, 12:18pm

Hi, I don’t know if it’s the right section. I tried to insert the media player alexa into the custom component gmusic, but it doesn’t work. Can anyone help me or can’t it be done?

jriker1 · December 9, 2019, 12:09am

Posted this separately as this thread is just insane to find things in, but didn’t get a reply yet so thought I’d try. I setup this component thru HACS. During setup I filled in the included devices field by name. I assume I need to add this new one in there but no idea where to put it. Please tell me I don’t have to reinstall the component.

Steven_Rollason · December 9, 2019, 4:46pm

I originally had the alexa_media component configured via configuration.yaml, but have now switched over to using the config flow to make configuration easier (less restarts) but I’ve had a couple of issues:

I can’t find a way to change the included/excluded devices after the initial configuration without deleting and re-adding the integration. Is this the only way this can be done.
If I disable the unwanted entities in Home Assistant instead (from the Integrations or Entities pages) this still leaves the notify services for these. Do you know if these can be disabled in any other way?

alandtse · December 10, 2019, 3:11am

That may be a bug and we’d need logs to diagnose why. Is that the only broken functionality?

Thanks. We have an issue tracking.

Is everything working? Has the .pickle file expired requiring a deletion and relogin?

It’s a cosmetic error and not high priority to fix.
No you don’t need configuration.yaml anymore.

I saw you figured it out but it’s a known issue where non Amazon devices lost Announce. You can only use TTS at this point.

Would need logs to diagnose but something didn’t load properly.

You have to delete and readd. It won’t impact any scripts/automations though as everything will be readded with existing entity_ids.

See answer to jriker above.
Notify is weird in HA like device_tracker so I don’t believe it has the disable functionality yet.
Probably should open a issue with HA to have them figure out how they want to handle it. While we could probably add some functionality to try to remove them if the media player entity is disabled, it seems a bit hackish to rely on components to figure it out.

zsmitchell · December 10, 2019, 4:24am

Thank you for confirming!

jriker1 · December 11, 2019, 3:50pm

Thanks. What I’ll be interested in is if the below shows or does anything with Media Player:

https://www.motorola.com/us/products/motorola-axh01-wireless-home-telephone-alexa-built

I purchased the four handset version and it’s tied to Amazon but technically you have to push a button down to activate Alexa and do not think each handset gets exposed to Amazon individually.

wmaker · December 12, 2019, 5:56pm

I just upgraded to 0.103.0. The following shows up in my log:
2019-12-12 12:45:07 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.alarm_control_panel] Setup of platform alexa_media is taking longer than 60 seconds. Startup will proceed without waiting any longer.

As such the alexa_guard entity is not getting created.

I don’t know if related but I also noted the following comment in the blog for version 0.103.0:

AhmadK · December 12, 2019, 6:25pm

I’m afraid it’s not related - in my case it was an abstract function added to the base class alarm_control_panel…

Pirol62 · December 12, 2019, 6:28pm

Hi,
I posted this issue before and you reported this as harmless.
But now I have it permanentely

That’s not a normal behavior from my point of view.
Is there anything I should do?

joe8mofo · December 13, 2019, 3:50pm

Restarted homeassistant on 102.3 and received a new message.
alexa_media_player 2.3.5

2019-12-13 10:34:31 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.setup] Unable to prepare setup for platform alexa_media.alarm_control_panel: Platform not found (cannot import name ‘SUPPORT_ALARM_ARM_AWAY’ from ‘homeassistant.components.alarm_control_panel’ (/usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/alarm_control_panel/init.py)).
2019-12-13 10:34:31 INFO (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.media_player] Setting up media_player.alexa_media

wmaker · December 13, 2019, 5:33pm

v2.3.5 solved the alexa_guard problem I was having earlier
Thanks!!