Room aware switches for Alexa

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1

I originally posted this on Reddit and thought I’d share it here as well.
I was trying to work out how to make switches which are room aware when using Alexa. Lights can already be room aware - if you have lights in a group and add an Echo into the same group, you can just say “Alexa, turn on the lights” and it will turn on the lights in the same group as the Echo. However, this doesn’t seem to work for switches. I came up with this workaround. This is based on turning a television on or off, but can be adapted for other devices.

1) Follow the instructions at https://github.com/walthowd/ha-alexa-tts to set to the alexa_remote_control.sh script (you don’t need the alexa_wrapper.sh script unless you want to allow text-to-speech notifications to your Echo devices).

2) Define a sensor like this:

sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    name: Last Alexa Device
    command: "/home/homeassistant/.homeassistant/alexa_remote_control.sh -lastalexa"

This sensor uses the -lastalexa option of the remote control script, which determines which Alexa device on your account was accessed most recently.

3) Create a template switch like this:

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      television:
        friendly_name: "Television"
        value_template: "off"
        turn_on:
          service: script.room_dependent_television
          data:
            state: on
        turn_off:
          service: script.room_dependent_television
          data:
            state: off

4) Create a script like this:

room_dependent_television:
  sequence:
    - service: homeassistant.update_entity # force update of sensor.last_alexa_device to determine which device this was requested from
      data:
        entity_id:
          sensor.last_alexa_device
    - service_template: >-
        {% if state %}
          homeassistant.turn_on
        {% else %}
          homeassistant.turn_off
        {% endif %}
      data_template:
        entity_id: "switch.{{ states('sensor.last_alexa_device') | replace(' ','_') | lower }}_television"

Note: This script assumes that the individual televisions are controlled by switches named like switch. echo_device_name _television where echo_device_name is the name of the Echo device which should control that television with spaces replaced with underscores (e.g. “My Bedroom” becomes “switch.my_bedroom_television”). You could use logic in the data_template if this is not the case.

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2

Not sure if I understand need for this.

If go to Alexa App you can define “Rooms”.
Place the switch + Alexa device in same room
The last key is changing the “switch” into a “light” in the Alexa app. This is done by selecting the device in the app, press settings [gear] and select light.

You must only tell Alexa that the switch is a light inside the Alexa app and place it into same room as Alexa device. Complete setup should be done in Alexa App not HA.

3

Doing it like that works, but it means that Alexa treats those devices as lights and there is no way to distinguish them from the lights which are actually lights. What happens if you want to turn the television on/off in that room without turning all the lights on or off or turn on/off all the lights without turning the television on or off?

4

My apology. I still dont think I fully understand use case.

Will “alexa, turn ON TV” work and Alexa turn on TV in specific room
OR is it for
“Alexa, tell HomeAssistant to turn ON TV” and HA turn ON TV for specific Room

I thought it was for first case use (Amazon know requesting room) but I think it is second (HA know requesting room)

EDIT
Got it now. I completely misunderstood goal so looking at scripts didnt make since.

There is a Single template switch being turned on and HA turn on TV based on requesting room.
“Alexa, turn on GenericRoom TV” and it just works

Thanks for this. Very useful

5

Hi i have an anternative solution here if your using nabu-casa