Echo Plus Support

Feature Requests
1

Struggled to find any information on the new Echo Plus and its compatibility with HA. I have been unable to get it to work with emulated hue to start.
Is it a future possibility to get HA integration with the Echo Plus’s built in zigbee hub?

2

From what others have posted, it has no open ports, so there’s likely to be little opportunity to use it as a hub.

3

Ive also seen around the forum that emulated_hue does not seem to work or has patchy issues with the latest alexa devices.

I have an Echo gen 2, not the plus. Emulated_hue isn’t working for me and have seen plenty of other people say its not working for them on the newer devices either.

I ended up building an alexa skill on AWS as per the instructions instead but then I didn’t like having to say “Alexa, Ask home assistant to turn the light on”

I then followed the instructions to use HAASKA and i no longer need to use the words home assistant any more in my speech. I can just say “Alexa turn the light on” or Alexa turn my speakers on.

4

I’m able to get echo plus connect with HA using the “Alexa via Home Assistant Cloud” + Alexa Smart Home skill method.

However, I cannot find a way to connect/control Philips Hue White Light, which connects to the echo plus. Any doc or insight?

5

Some news about it? Can Home Assistant control any zigbee sensor via del Alexa ECHO plus hub?

6

So, doens’t possible to make home assistant compatible with the echo plus hub?
I’m trying some workaround but with no results.

7

Seem to recall seeing some sort of control working with openhab recently so may be possible but most people here would go with an independent solution as that’s how most people end up here as well as it’s cheaper and more versatile to buy an Echo and separate hub/sniffer.

Because of this I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a solution. The Echo Plus is more designed for people who think a few Hue bulbs is the ultimate home automation system.

8

i prefer less hubs - so a integration would be awesome!
until now i start my routines in echo to control a device, but thats very limited

9

I am also looking for a solution to access my devices configured in Alexa Zigbee Hub.
Or is there already a solution available?
I do have some sockets from Osram, which are working better with Alexa Hub instead of Philipps Hue Hub.

In case you do have already a solution for this, I am looking forward to try this!

10

@Bobby_Nobble can you ahre more info about how people got it working with openhab?

I’ve currently got an Echo Plus and would like to be able to use my Zigbee devices with it.

11

Sorry, don’t know anything about openhab, just read it somewhere.

12

Ah ok, I’d be interested if someone managed to do it.

A workaround is to use Alexa routines + Alexa media player component to turn zigbee devices on and off, better than nothing I guess.

1 Like
13

Could you explain your workaround a bit more.

Do you use a dummy bulb entity for that?

14

Yep, simple dummy bulb, and have an Alexa routine that turns the zigbee bulb on and off when the dummy bulb is turned on and off in HA.

Works great for turning bulbs on and off, but I’ve not found a way to do brightness or colour changes yet.

15

Ok and for what do you need the media player component in that example. Or do you play confirmation message with that?

BTW I did not find an option to use state changes of a bulb as a trigger in alexa routines. Maybe this region specific.

However just asking out of interest, moved everything to zigbee2mqtt. Also others users might ask themselves those questions when they reed your suggestions.

16

You can use the media player component to directly trigger routines, more info is here:

Running Alexa automation routines is now supported. Routines are tasks you can trigger through the Alexa App. Please create them using the Alexa app and ensure they are enabled . This is now exposed through the media_player.play_media service when the media_content_type is set to routine

So for you have one routine to turn a zigbee bulb on, another routine to turn it off, then trigger these routines using an automation in HA.

It sounds more complicated that it is, in fact I only heard about zigbee2mqtt today, and in fact am now planning to go down that route also, will just have to wait a month for the parts to arrive.

1 Like
17

You are right, only tried that alexa media trigger (routines) once and forgot about it.

I think your conversation will totally help someone.

Thanks.

1 Like
18

Hopefully. :slight_smile: Even simple on/off is better than nothing, and you can always fire up the Alexa app on a phone if you need to change brightness/hue

19

BTW you can also use certain Brightness values to fire routines, this way you will only need one dummy bulb for servers lack things to control.

20

The following yaml configuration works for me. It utilizes two Alexa routines I’ve created (one for turning the bulbs on, and another for off) by registering a simple light template entity, which controls basic on/off of my hue lights (connected through an echo 4th generation hub):

# light:
- platform: template
  lights:
    kitchen_hue_lights:
      friendly_name: Kitchen Lights
      turn_on:
        service: script.kitchen_hue_lights_on_routine
      turn_off:
        service: script.kitchen_hue_lights_off_routine

# script:
kitchen_hue_lights_on_routine:
  alias: "Routine Kitchen Lights: ON"
  icon: mdi:light-switch
  sequence:
  - service: media_player.play_media
    data:
      media_content_id: "Kitchen Lights: ON" # Routine name in Alexa app
      media_content_type: routine
    entity_id: media_player.kitchen_dotty_charcoal # Can be any registered alexa_media player entity
  mode: single

kitchen_hue_lights_off_routine:
  alias: "Routine Kitchen Lights: OFF"
  icon: mdi:light-switch
  sequence:
  - service: media_player.play_media
    data:
      media_content_id: "Kitchen Lights: OFF"
      media_content_type: routine
    entity_id: media_player.kitchen_dotty_charcoal
  mode: single