Echo Devices (Alexa) as Media Player - Testers Needed

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5596

Hi,

I have this integration installed and configured in my HA.

I have devices from HA discovered and working fine in Alexa - or so I thought.
Recently I have added a Sonoff ZigBee stick to HA and a few ZigBee devices using zigbee2mqtt (not the integrated HA one - I have it running on a separate server). All zigbee devices added work fine in HA - can see them can control them etc

Zigbee2mqtt works fine as I have devices discovered in my Alexa account like Tasmota, OpenBKN etc

However I can not Alexa to discover the zigbee devices . I do a discovery and is not seeing any ZigBee devices I have.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong here. I think Alexa is supposed to discover HA devices regardless if they are Tasmota, OpenBKN, ZigBee?
Any help to get the ZigBee devices in Alexa will be appreciated.
Thanks

5597

The Alexa Media Player custom integration, which is the subject of this thread, exposes Alexa devices to Home Assistant, it does not expose HA devices to Alexa. That functionality is covered by either HA Cloud, a custom Alexa skill, or NodeRed.

5598

In case you are still looking into this, I use:

5599

What is the difference with the Alexa Media Player ?

5600

HAASKA is one of a few custom Alexa skills. Like Home Assistant Cloud, it exposes HA entities to Alexa so that Alexa can control them.

AMP exposes Alexa devices to HA so the Home Assistant can use Alexa devices for TTS and trigger Alexa routines.

5601

Thanks but with the HA Skill I already have all my HA devices in Alexa.

5602

Have a really strange scenario where volume controls are working. Pause works but not play.
Cannot see if a device is playing music or not. Only update is at restart then if playing or if timer set all show.
Deleted my pickle as per FAQ but now there is no new one being generated. Everything says connected just no updates after start up. Can anyone suggest where to look next?

1 Like
5603

I’d like to understand why the following works with Google devices but not with Alexa devices "

service: media_player.play_media
data:
  media_content_id: >-
    http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/
    livestream-redirect/SKYRADIOAAC.aac
  media_content_type: audio/aac
target:
  entity_id:
    - media_player.nestmini1274
    - media_player.living_room_echo
5604

Hi all, Anyone else having problems with TTS notifications lately?

TTS worked fine for me for a long time, and the integration still appears to work (I can change volume on devices, etc), but for the last few months TTS notifications don’t work.

I use this syntax:

      - service: notify.alexa_media
        data_template:
          target: 
            - '{{ states.sensor.last_alexa.state }}' 
          data:
            type: tts
          message: >-
            {{ states.sensor.alena_eta.state }}. 
            {{ states.sensor.alena_eta_description.state }}

This has always worked before, but now I get some variation of the following error:

[homeassistant.components.websocket_api.http.connection] [140576097707216] Error handling message: expected a dictionary for dictionary value @ data['sequence'][0]['target']. Got ['media_player.alexa_living_room']

or

extra keys not allowed @ data['sequence'][0]['message']. Got 'test' (invalid_format) Sean Straus from [redacted IP] (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0)

This even happens when I just use the example from the docs as such:

service: notify.alexa_media
message: test
data: 
  type: tts
target: 
  - media_player.alexa_living_room

Any idea what changed here to break everything?

5605

Because Amazon isn’t Google… Amazon has basically restricted streaming on echo devices to the Big 8 streamers and sources with Alexa skills.

5606

Your top example is working for me… though the data_template is no longer necessary, just use data.

The “example from the docs” is missing a data parent key for message, data, and target.

1 Like
5607

Thanks. Is there a (n easy) way to cast radio stations (url / aac, mp3 etc) to Alexa ?

5608

If they have a skill, use that. Otherwise, it’s a total crap shoot.

It looks like Sky Radio is available (at least in the US. YMMV) through the Dutch Radio skill. So you can add the skill to Alexa then use the custom commands feature or routines feature of AMP to play the station.

5609

many radio stations are available through tunein

5610

Yes, I have seen the Dutch radio skill, but it is way more complicated than (as you already pointed out) Google. I mostly use Chromecast to cast, so I can live without casting to Alexa, though it would have been nice to have it as an (easy) option. THANKS

5611

you dont need specific radio skills.
tunein has hundreds of radio stations, including dutch local radio (like radio rijnmond) and german radio (like swr3), but also sky radio.
if you got tunein you can just say to alexa: “play radio rijnmond”.
a command through the media player automations would then be the same.

5612

Thanks but that does not work. As an example when I ask Alexa to play Sky Radio I do not get the Dutch Sky Radio. I also tried Sky Radio 101, 101.5, Amsterdam…but still get a totally different Sky Radio. Maybe it is because I am in the US and maybe it works when in the Netherlands.

5613

look at the tunein website which radios are available.

5614

Good point ! Some time ago Sky Radio disappeared from TuneIn here in the US :frowning:

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5615

could very well be that that is in more countries.
i listened to it ages ago, so a year ago or so i tried it on tunein and got a russian radio called sky radio.

lucky for me that my wife hears all kind of radio that is available on tunein :wink:

i guess being in the USA, is just as difficult as being in germany when it goes for dutch things.
and talking dutch to alexa probably never will happen.