Hassio and Home Assistant Cloud... exposes everything to Amazon

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

So, I have one switch that I want to cloud expose… switch.desktop. I am using the following in my configuration.yaml file:

cloud:
config:
  alexa:
      filter:
        exclude_domains:
          - script
          - automation
          - switch
          - light
          - group
#        include_entities:
#          - switch.desktop

When I run the Alexa discover it finds all of my automations and groups. I go from 35 discovered devices to 97, PITA to delete them one at a time over and over.

I have tried disconnecting from cloud and reconnecting before discovery and I have tried the above hatchet approach to allowing none of my domains to get to the cloud.

What am I doing wrong?

2

Any reason for sending it to the cloud and not using emulated_hue. $5 a month for one switch seems like a lot.

3

Right now, just testing to see if it all works since I may have other use cases at some point. I may go ahead and attache it to my emulated hue since I do have it up and running.

My original intent was to reduce my dependence upon any cloud when I set up the HA instance. This is more of a trial run than anything.

4

It does seem the filter option should help manage this. Have you tried to set the alexa_hidden attribute for a few items to see if that does the trick?

5

I have not… that is more effort than I am willing to put it with a filter option that can handle it in a few lines. May try again when that works.

6

I read on another post that the filter exclude is broken currently (this is alpha or beta stuff I suppose). btw, for my Homebridge hidden needs I use customize_glob to hit most of my sensors with just a couple lines of code, if that helps any.

7

hope this helps someone else
http://alexa.amazon.com

look at the skills section and you can ‘forget All’

used to be in the app - now for some reason only in the web version

8

I can’t get the filters to work. If I don’t have any filters, and just:

cloud:

Loads of stuff shows up in Alexa, tons of it I don’t want.

If I apply some filters, nothing shows up:

cloud:
  alexa:
    filter:
      include_entities:
        - group.kitchen_lights
        - group.living_room_lights
        - group.bedroom_lights
        - group.exterior_lights

What am I missing?

9

include or exclude domains (not groups of things)
so

include_entities:
  - switch.wherever
exclude_domains:
  - lights
  - scripts

then use the entities to fine tune

10

Is what you’re saying that unless I exclude things, including won’t work?

The docs say that the group domain is supported. Why wouldn’t I be able to use groups with include_entities?

My objective is to expose groups of lights to Alexa, but rarely individual lights.

11

unless i’m mistaken a group is an entity and so is the contents of that group - i’ve not checked, but not sure if excluding a group will exclude all of its component parts.

So light 1, light 2 and light 3 = group 1

i can turn on and off group 1 (which turns 1, 2 & 3 on and off)

if i exclude group 1, i dont think the individual lights 1, 2 & 3 are excluded (as you can still see them)

just start with all domains excluded, and add a single light. then go from there.

Dont forget to exclude scripts, scenes, sensors etc (lot of domains to exclude).

Customizing the name is less important as you can do that in the alexa app, but customizing the class of what alexa thinks it is - is super important so you can turn on or off, or add to routines etc

1 Like
12

Thanks for the help! I just found out that via the cloud integration, Alexa puts groups under “Scenes” by default, not devices.

13

cool, dont forget you can change that by using:

group.kitchen_lights:
  name: kitchen lights
  display_categories: LIGHT

I had issues using routines and some scenes. I liked to customize my syntax. Instead of
‘Alexa, turn on dinnertime’
I preferred
‘Alexa, its dinnertime’

1 Like
14

How did you do that? I want to set things on and off when I say “Time for bed”, etc.

15

You can do that creating Routines on alexa instead Scenes.