Hello everyone,
Is it possible to disable Alexa integration at certain times?
I don’t want anyone to be able to open the shutter when I’m not at home or in bed.
Hi, have you figured this out? I’d love to be able to disable mic on all/some Alexa devices automatically with a trigger; for example - when input_boolean.guest_mode goes from off to on, disable all Alexa mics. When guest mode goes off then enable the mics.
No, unfortunately I have not yet found a solution.
This isn’t possible. It’s not available through the Alexa API and currently only a hardware press of the mute button will mute the mic.
With that said, I have some of my Alexa devices on smart plugs that automatically turn off when everyone leaves and turns on again when we get home.
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That’s a really good idea; a shame we have to go through that much effort though. Thanks for the tip!
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I think it would be problematic if people discovered Alexa’s API included the ability to enable/disable the microphone. The implication is that despite the end-user pushing a button to disable the microphone, it could easily be turned back on via an API call (perhaps by Amazon). This defeats the purpose of having a hardware switch that is supposed to provide ultimate control over the device’s microphone.
For the cynical-minded, I understand that it’s possible they have an undocumented API call to control the microphone. If that were ever proven to be true, it would become a PR nightmare for Amazon.
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You could try using the “SwitchBot Smart Switch Button Pusher” - which is a smart switch that can “mechanically” push a button.
They have variations, so you would need to check them out, but the link (NOT affiliate) will get you there. You would have to mount it on the echo somehow, I think it comes with two sided sticky tape …
I ended up using a smart switch to turn the power to the Alex off at source.
My reason was because the new QLED TV we just installed has Alexa built in and it does a pretty good job. One of the problems is that traditional Echo Dots and Echo Shows seem to have problems hearing the wake word over the volume of the TV, but the TV itself doesn’t have any such issues. For this reason we wanted to use the inbuilt Alexa feature whilst the TV is turned on.
However, the problem is that the Alexa feature only works when the TV is turned on - so if you want to use voice control to change the lights or anything else whilst the TV is off then you’re out of luck.
I’ve configured an automation now so that when the TV is powered on the Echo Show is powered off and the Show is automatically turned back on when the TV powers down. It’s not ideal but it’s about the best solution for now.
I still would like to see a HA switch/service to disable and enable. And I think it would not be that big development effort.
You can do every automation in HA manually, but I think, it is not the dna of it. See your advertising here as well, regarding remote connection
Either to disblae/enable or (my favorite, because you can still see in the log, what would have been happened) still listening for or receiving the commands, but disable/enable only the execution by only suppressing the alexa-command-execution.
I think it is more than easy, to bring such Boolean-switch with a on/off-service in this integration, isn’t it?
Background: Would be more than great and secure if I would be able to switch this of, if no one is at home. So that even if whoever is shouting something to Alexa, and she understands, what it wants, that the control command to my HA is not executed.