Echo Devices (Alexa) as Media Player - Testers Needed

Share your Projects! Custom Integrations
670

@Jtmoore81 what component was that

671

It was TTS through Chromecast and had the Chromecast hooked up to my surround sound. I couldn’t ever get it to work like I wanted and this started to gain some traction.

672

Quick tip: If you want her to swear put an apostrophe in the word and she’ll say it.

1 Like
673

You can test this out. have the echo say something via HA and this component, then say, Simon Says “and then say the same thing it said via HA”. the time, delays, pauses, etc will be 100% the same. Now maybe adding a comma or making sure to include proper punctuation will help in how she speaks. I would bet on that. So if your output has no punctionation she will speak as if there is no punctuation.

1 Like
674

Trying to get a sensor that has the last volume state, so I can change it back once an announcement is made, any idea why the below does not work. I have tried it different ways but this is the only one without a config error.

  - alias: "AlexaChangedVolume_Office"
    initial_state: True
    trigger:
      platform: template
      value_template: '{{states.media_player.Office.attributes.volume_level}}'
    action:
      - service: mqtt.publish
        data_template:
          topic: 'alexa/volume/office'
          payload: '{{states.media_player.Office.attributes.volume_level}}'
675

You can try to set the volume level before you need it, save that volume level in a variable, we have a variable component, here, and feed that back, when you need to. I find myself using more variables than I would have imagined for many situations. Maybe this can help you too.

676

I also installed this tonight.

Works great.

What I was hoping for the ability to set the volume of my echo with an automation. If the media player is active I can set the volume and this is then remembered for subsequent voice responses. However if the media player is in standby state a request to change the volume has no effect. Am I missing something here or is there a work around.

I want to automate the volume being lowered when the kids go to bed.

677

In addition to what @SMARTMEDIA said about variables, another option is to do a TTS message of “…” which should allow you to set volumes while it’s playing the silence.

2 Likes
678

@alandtse that’s a great “hack”, nice one, … completely “out of the box” thinking right there … :slight_smile:

679

I’m using the input_number component

image

image

680

I am having a hell of a time getting TTS working…

How should my config file look when setting this up?

681

media_player:

Notice that I have no quotation marks around anything. Not sure if that matters or not, but it works for me.

682

When i try to send a TTS to it it just says “sorry text to speech can only be called with the alexa media service”

683

You have to use a script or use the service.

684

how would i go about that? using the service?

685

To use the tts service follow the instructions listed bellow. Also found at the top of the post.

686

I have this radio add on, but when I try it says that text to speech isn’t available. Is there a fix?

687

I just tried sending something to my alexa. It said the media player alexa tts service is needed. What is that and where do I get it?

688

Via the UI (the Text to speech.) does not work. You have to call the service. Read up a few posts or the top post to see how to do that. It’s pretty easy once you do it the first time.

689

Did anything change recently? I still get the captcha, but it never shows the alexa media player after I enter it (used to work last week).