How to trigger Alexa routines from Home Assistant

[djelo (Patrick Kishino)]

Yeah, I’ve been looking for this… Any chance to be notified once it’s activated for the cloud?

[infiniteloop]

Sorry for the late reply.
yep, it’s all set as per instruction on your first post.
Maybe the app give me the error cause I don’t have an echo?
I’m just testing various Alexa stuff through the app.

[Varjo]

What’s the issue with the cloud component? Is it that it doesn’t properly expose binary sensor types?

[abmantis]

No. The problem is that the auth between the alexa skill and the alexa component is not completely implemented in the cloud component.

[Varjo]

Meaning what exactly? That Alexa can’t see any sensors? Is it that proactive mode is disabled?

[abmantis]

Yes, proactive mode is disabled. HA can’t send updates to alexa without alexa asking for a status.
Alexa could already see sensors, even before proactive mode was implemented.

[Varjo]

Darn. Hopefully they update soon; makes the cloud service a lot less appealing.

[PlayedIn]

I trigger Alexa routines with this component:

Running alexa_remote_control.sh inside Hass.io

NOTE This script is no longer required. All options now supported in @ keatontaylor custom component I have been fighting to run the https://loetzimmer.de/patches/alexa_remote_control.sh in Hass.io After some time I think I have a workable solution I have created a new post as the original post is enormous and the information is now difficult to extract This solution is for Hass.io and It will be a long post so “bare with me” Before I begin . I would recommend anybody usi…

[wmaker (Tommy Long)]

I’m been using Haaska for a couple of months now, and thought I would give this a try, but my first problem is that my binary sensors are not being discovered. To make sure the discovery was still working, I added a light and the light does get discovered and it is in the same filter include list as my binary sensors (I have no exclude filter). I’m on 0.85.1. Am I missing something simple?

[wmaker (Tommy Long)]

OK, got the binary sensor figure out…

The Haaska Super Thread

I figured it out (had to take a look at the smart_home.py code in HA). It has to figure out how to categorize a sensor (for Alexa) as CONTACT or MOTION sensor. It Looks at a sensor’s device class, and only looks at a limited number of device classes: if attrs.get(ATTR_DEVICE_CLASS) in ( 'door', 'garage_door', 'opening', 'window', ): return self.TYPE_CONTACT if attrs.get(ATTR_DEVICE_CLASS) == 'motion': return self.TYPE_MOTION My binary sensor was not …

Now I can’t get the Alexa routine to trigger.
The routine sees the binary sensor, and I can add the binary sensor to the routine and can set the state the routine is to look for (in my example to “open”). I can “play” the routine and see that it performs the action (saying “hello”).
When the binary sensor state changes in in HA, Alexa sees it change to “open”, but the routine is not triggered.

I have followed the steps best I can tell:

1. Enabled Send Alexa Events in my haaska skill; and relinked the skill on Alexa app.
2. Added to configuration.yaml the endpoint, client_id and client_secret (copied from “Send Alexa Events”)
   Not sure where else to look/do?

[wmaker (Tommy Long)]

Got it working…had to relink the skill on Alexa App (disable/enable the haaska skill) yet again.

[butako123]

I can’t get this to work either.
Alexa app can see the binary_sensor, it’s state changes when i open the door, but the Routine refuses to trigger. Rarely, it does trigger (alexa app notification) but notification is delivered ~30 minutes after the event.
I’ve tried disabling / enabling the skill, deleting / recreating routines, devices etc etc all to no avail.
I am using HomeAssistant skill, and hassio 0.87.1

[bjamm]

I can’t get it to work either. Running .88 and the HA skill.

I have 6 devices setup and working in the Alexa app. They update properly; however it does not trigger the routine. For example when Front door opens it should say on the alexa " Front Door is Open" but does not trigger even though in the Alexa app it shows the front door as open.

Any updates or workarounds to get it working?

[abmantis]

Have you enable the “Send Alexa Events” permission on the alexa developer console? You must disable and enable the skill again on the alexa app after that.

[privatesam]

This would be huge for Home Assistant - the ability for Alexa to alert me by speaking a phrase of my choice based on what a sensor is doing is the dream. Will justify Nabu casa cloud subscription alone!

[jaalperin (Jeff Alperin)]

Anyone see this: “Error calling LWA to get auth token”?

I’ve been over and over the settings, but can’t see the problem.

[lonebaggie]

try this

Speech Parser script to extract entity Id information into readable form for Alexa or Google Assistant TTS

EDIT please note I have completely re-written the program and instructions following @ReneTode advice EDIT1 Have updated script again. Warning options and syntax has changed again (sorry) EDIT version 1.0 rewritten with regex to simplify the code also added new options. can now compare state values = >< + and -. See the code for new examples EDIT: Version 1.1 correct parsing errors EDIT: Version 2.0 now has a global search and replace . Translate option EDIT Version 2.1 minor update I …

[abmantis]

Have you set up the “Login With Amazon” and the security profile correctly?

[jaalperin (Jeff Alperin)]

I’ve gone over it and over it. Can’t find anything that is not as outlined in the haaska instructions and the SmartHome instructions. The Lamda function tests OK and the Alexa routine works properly. Permissions are set and enabled. No errors, but when binary_sensor (device class motion) is turned on, Alexa doesn’t budge.

[abmantis]

This may be a stupid question but… have you disabled and enabled (and relinked) the skill on the Alexa app? Also, have you run a scan after that?

You can try checking for events. On the Alexa Developer Console, on the “Test” tab, enable the Device Log and the Alexa Smart Home (Beta) widgets. On the Smart Home widget, enable the live debugger. The, on the device log widget you should see events appearing every time you change a sensor or turn on a light that is exposed to alexa.

EDIT: if you still see the LWA auth errors, then my suggestion above will not work. But those errors could be from you testing the lambda directly.