Could someone please point me to a how to/instructions or help me please to configure “Alexa Devices” add on to make an announcement on all echo devices when one of my Heiman smoke detectors operates.
I did a search in ChatGPT which initially suggested AMP (which I am having real problems setting up) but then said it was possible with Alexa Devices.
I would like an announcement like “Warning, Warning Smoke Detected in the Kitchen” when the kitchen smoke detector operates.
I believe I have to use an Notify Service but don’t know where in HA to look for these. Each Echo device has an “Announce Entity” which might be what I need but I don’t know where to link a Smoke detector activation with the announce entity?
Do I also need other add ins like a text to speech service or is this handled by Alexa
Save yourself time and frustration and search the official docs and the forums… ChatGPT and other LLM bullshit engines are very hallucination prone when it comes to HA unless you are using very specific, strict, and detailed prompts with clear context.
That’s an automation with the smoke detector as the trigger. There is an example automation in the Alexa Devices docs. If you need help setting up the trigger, you will need to give us more information about how the smoke detector is represented in HA, what sensor does it supply and which states of those sensors you want to start the automation.
To have it announce on all your Alexa devices you will use the Everywhere group which is automatically created by Alexa as the target of the notification action. Normally, this should be the represented by the entity notify.everywhere_announce.
As shown in the example linked above, the action used for notifications in Alexa Devices is notify.send_message.
For reference, you can find and test all the actions/services available on your Home Assistant instance using the Action Tool in the Developer Tools.
No, you don’t need any other integrations or addons.
Firstly many thanks for the quick reply with very helpful advice. I have created two automations but have fallen at the first hurdle as the automations have disappeared from the automations tab. the automations.yaml file is still there and the file contains the automations so I have no idea what’s happened. I’ve restarted HA but they have not reappeared.
However I have created the following automation as per attached screenshots:-
- Trigger
a) Device Trigger
b) Device Trigger State “Smoke Detector 1 started detecting smoke”
c) Duration 01 second
- Action
a) Send a notification message
b) Entity- Announce everywhere
c) Message- “Warning, Warning, Smoke detected in bedroom corridor”
I have tested the action and the announcement plays on all of the echo devices.
Is there anything else I should do? I don’t appear to have used any of the advanced markup found in the Alexa Devices docs but perhaps what I have done above is written to the automations.yaml??
I just need to test the alarm with a smoke taper to see if it runs on smoke detection before writing automations for the other detectors
For further info the Heiman Zigbee Smoke detector screenshots are added below
If you need further info please let me know and thanks again.
I now need to find out why the automations aren’t showing
What you have shared looks fine, though it would be easier to spot any issues if you would share the YAML configuration instead of screenshots.
If the automations are in automations.yaml you should be fine. You may want to go to the Automations tab and refresh your browser cache and see if they reappear. Automations are also entities, so you can check the Entities list to see if they are there… there should be a link to edit them in the entity settings popup that appears when you click on them from that list.
The “advanced markup” (aka SSML) is optional.
There you go 
I have tried to find the entity list which I assume is Settings>Devices and Services>entities tab but I am not sure what entity to look for. Is it an Alexa announce entity or device entity or a service. Sorry I’m still trying to learn the complexities of HA and cant get my head around a lot of it. The videos i’ve watched make it look so easy but at every step I seem to hit a problem.
Community Questions Guideline #14
Yes, that is the correct location.
If you have already tested the notify.send_message action with the entity notify.everywhere_announce as its target, you don’t really need to look for anything.
Or… are you asking about the automation entities?
Let’s break it down:
- The integration is Alexa Devices.
- The entity under discussion is
notify.everywhere_announce - That entity is part of a device called Everywhere.
- The action (previously known as a service call) is
notify.send_message.
No worries. There’s a lot to learn in a system this broad. Also, the entire notification paradigm in HA is in the middle of a overhaul, so it’s especially confusing right now.
One problem with videos is that they become outdated pretty quickly. The Alexa Devices core integration was only added a little over 4 months ago, so any video older than that won’t be helpful.
I think I’ve seen maybe 2 videos on YouTube that specifically cover setting up and using Alexa Devices … and those were from pretty small channels so you really have to search to find them.
Firstly thank you again for your patience. I have come from Smartthings and although I received help from users on the Smartthings forum, I found it frustrating that so many devices weren’t supported or needed complicated hacks to get them working like creating virtual switches so that Tuya based devices were exposed to Alexa.
With the exception of some routines and presence/location sensor to be able to open my driveway gate (which appears to be easier in HA), I would primarily like an Alexa voice controlled environment. Hence getting the smoke detectors to make an announcement. (Yes I appreciate Alexa is cloud based) but the backup would be for the detectors to be linked such if one activates it triggers the other.
I just need to find out why my automations aren’t displaying.
I have looked at the logs and found some errors and warnings:-
Logger: aioamazondevices
Source: components/alexa_devices/coordinator.py:58
First occurred: 10:11:52 (14 occurrences)
Last logged: 16:47:31
Malformed endpoint data received: {'errors': [{'message': 'Too many requests', 'path': ['listEndpoints'], 'extensions': {'errorCode': 'UNOFFICIAL_CLIENT_TOO_MANY_REQUESTS', 'isRetryable': False, 'classification': 'DataFetchingException'}}], 'data': None, 'extensions': {'requestID': 'HFDPGSFZ817KT8FM9C30', 'duration': 15}}
Malformed endpoint data received: {'errors': [{'message': 'Too many requests', 'path': ['listEndpoints'], 'extensions': {'errorCode': 'UNOFFICIAL_CLIENT_TOO_MANY_REQUESTS', 'isRetryable': False, 'classification': 'DataFetchingException'}}], 'data': None, 'extensions': {'requestID': '18E0AX2BPX7XDQ3Y74EE', 'duration': 14}}
Malformed endpoint data received: {'errors': [{'message': 'Too many requests', 'path': ['listEndpoints'], 'extensions': {'errorCode': 'UNOFFICIAL_CLIENT_TOO_MANY_REQUESTS', 'isRetryable': False, 'classification': 'DataFetchingException'}}], 'data': None, 'extensions': {'requestID': 'PCQYS91RQQ423HDM6AD9', 'duration': 15}}
Malformed endpoint data received: {'errors': [{'message': 'Too many requests', 'path': ['listEndpoints'], 'extensions': {'errorCode': 'UNOFFICIAL_CLIENT_TOO_MANY_REQUESTS', 'isRetryable': False, 'classification': 'DataFetchingException'}}], 'data': None, 'extensions': {'requestID': '7V5Z79THPDAJN8FS7TD4', 'duration': 14}}
Malformed endpoint data received: {'errors': [{'message': 'Too many requests', 'path': ['listEndpoints'], 'extensions': {'errorCode': 'UNOFFICIAL_CLIENT_TOO_MANY_REQUESTS', 'isRetryable': False, 'classification': 'DataFetchingException'}}], 'data': None, 'extensions': {'requestID': 'VT4BJWH3E4T21NCPND9P', 'duration': 15}}
Second
Logger: aioamazondevices
Source: components/alexa_devices/entity.py:28
First occurred: 10:12:00 (8 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:12:00
Unknown device type 'A1JJ0KFC4ZPNJ3' for John's Echo Input: please read https://github.com/chemelli74/aioamazondevices/wiki/Unknown-Device-Types
Unknown device type 'A2QPKXCDRNWZ2T' for John's 2023 Samsung Smart QLED TV W/ Far-Field Voice: please read https://github.com/chemelli74/aioamazondevices/wiki/Unknown-Device-Types
Third :-
This error originated from a custom integration.
Logger: custom_components.alexa_media
Source: helpers/update_coordinator.py:424
integration: Alexa Media Player (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 10:11:56 (1 occurrence)
Last logged: 10:11:56
Error fetching alexa_media data: Error communicating with API: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'get'
And Fourth:-
Logger: alexapy.helpers
Source: runner.py:271
First occurred: 10:11:56 (2 occurrences)
Last logged: 10:11:56
alexaapi.get_devices_gql((<alexapy.alexalogin.AlexaLogin object at 0x7f1e82c55d30>,), {}): An error occurred accessing AlexaAPI: An exception of type AttributeError occurred. Arguments: ("'NoneType' object has no attribute 'get'",)
alexaapi.get_network_details((<alexapy.alexalogin.AlexaLogin object at 0x7f1e82c55d30>,), {}): An error occurred accessing AlexaAPI: An exception of type AttributeError occurred. Arguments: ("'NoneType' object has no attribute 'get'",)
The Second error Unknown device type relates to my Samsung TV which I have not adopted because I use voice control in the attached FireTV Cube and the echo input is added to my account by Amazon but still in its box. Should I delete these two devices to try and resolve the error?
The fourth error looks suspiciously like an authentication issue with Amazon but have no idea how to troubleshoot that.
PS sorry about not adhering to Community Guideline #14