Echo Devices (Alexa) as Media Player - Testers Needed

[maurizio53 (Maurizio Fabiani)]

Same here. I am using mini-media-player card but not getting the full-cover artwork like before.
And i get this in /states:

The device is actually playing a song.
EDIT: The full cover appears just many minutes after…

[h4nc]

I think I just figured out why the Last triggered Sensor could be useful.

I’d like to be able to ask alexa for certain sensors.

For example:
Routine: “Does it rain” that triggers an input boolean to turn on

Automation that’s looks for that Boolean and than triggers the Mediaplayer to tell you the answer with an if that’s looks for rain/notrain.

The issue here would be to know which Alexa was asked and only push the message to that device.

Is this how you use this sensor. Does someone have a ready to use automation?

[lonebaggie]

try this

Last Alexa Sensor using Keaton Taylor Alexa Media Player custom component

I have been using the alexa python script https://blog.loetzimmer.de/2017/10/amazon-alexa-hort-auf-die-shell-echo.html?m=1 for some time now mainly for the last alexa option which returns the last echo or dot to have spoken. This script is not 100% reliable and requires the cookie to be updated every couple of weeks. I noticed when I updated https://github.com/keatontaylor/custom_components/tree/master/media_player to the latest version 1.0.2 it now has an attribute last_called. This can be u…

[maurizio53 (Maurizio Fabiani)]

Thanks… now it gives me the right result in dev-template editor.

[alandtse]

@h4nc

So if we all have to verify at the first configuration, this is saved somewhere else, right?

The sms or email captcha prompt is something Amazon generates for some reason. This may be related to suspicious activity or some other reason. We save the log-in cookie so in theory won’t be asked until the next login.

@shire210

I also have the same issue of the song not updating when I ask Alexa to play Spotfy on a different device (e.g. asking the Alexa in my office to play Spotify in the bedroom). Is anyone else having this issue or know of a solution?

This is a known issue for now. The component doesn’t update because it doesn’t poll unless it knows the device is active. The work around is to do something to that playing device either through HA or with your voice. It should then start checking the device until it stops playing. At this point I don’t see any API information that can tell us that the reason an Alexa was last interacted with was to enable playing on a different Alexa.

The reason we disabled the old behavior was because this component has to contact Amazon’s servers for each Alexa and having every single Alexa polling every 30 seconds 24 hours a day could potentially cause issues with throttling.

[h4nc]

@alandtse

The sms or email captcha prompt is something Amazon generates for some reason. This may be related to suspicious activity or some other reason. We save the log-in cookie so in theory won’t be asked until the next login.

So the reason I don’t remember it, is probably because I never had to verify right in this component. So Amazon doesn’t do that for any user?
Wouldn’t the switch to the new component mean a new login?
But yeah if they only do that for certain reasons, and mine doesn’t trigger that reason and won’t see it.

[meh (mg)]

after selecting email I get this

[h4nc]

What’s happens after pressing confirm? Did you look in the notifications and/or the log?

[meh (mg)]

I have this in log file

2019-02-24 21:51:18 WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.loader] You are using a custom component for alexa_media which has not been tested by Home Assistant. This component might cause stability problems, be sure to disable it if you do experience issues with Home Assistant.

EDIT: just to be sure I’m using ver 0.88.1 and there is the three .py files in alexa_media folder

[h4nc]

This log file entry is nothing to worry about, this is a normal warning for custom components after ha restarts.

That’s all I can tell you about that. Sry

[alandtse]

If the email route isn’t working, we’ll need you to enable advanced debugging along with regular debugging. There might be something with the webpages Amazon shows for email sms that we aren’t processing correctly. Please review the wiki for details.

The alternative is to try the sms route. I know others have confirmed the sms route works. I haven’t heard any confirmation on the email route.

[petro]

This component is no longer registering the service alexa_tts. Is anyone else seeing that?

[sagittcyber (Sagitt)]

Maybe add support for custom updater, if possible

custom-components/custom_updater

[AZDane]

meh,

Deleting the Amazon pickle file should give you Captcha instead after the next reboot. Then you can just fill out the Captcha

[ReneTode]

did you update and relocate the component?

[petro]

Actually, It has to be because I need to redo the captcha, completely forgot about that step. But the image isn’t showing up, on to the next mystery.

[ReneTode]

read back a bit here, most misteries are already spoken about

[petro]

I just confirmed w/ an empty string and it reloaded the image. I’m guessing that the redirected image was no longer there/valid when I noticed the notification. Working now, service is back.

[meh (mg)]

Thank you all for your answers
after reinstalling files for the 99th time, I have this

it’s possible to remove the fire tv ? since it’s only ordered and not installed yet

[h4nc]

yes, simply exclude it, or include the ones you want to see:

custom-components/alexa_media_player

Configuring Inclusions or Exclusions (versions >= 0.9.6)

alexa_media:
  accounts:
  - email: your amazon email
    password: your amazon password
    url: amazon.com
    include_devices:
      - "Master Bedroom"
      - Stairs
    exclude_devices:
      - Stairs
      - Garage

Make sure you use the right names. You can find them follwing the link above an reading the docs in the headline mentioned above.