Amazon Echo

It has been said on the old forums that Amazon echo support would be available soon. Any idea when?

This is just waiting on Amazon. They have an approval process which, like Apple, can take an indeterminate amount of time. It's pretty much the coolest thing since sliced bread, I'm using it all day long.

This feature will be 100% in Simple Sync.

Thank you.

Really looking forward to this integration! Can you associate different Echo's to different rooms in Simple Control? Any info on this would be great. Keep up the great work guys!

Cheers,

Mike

Just want to mention I cannot wait for this, will wait to summer to see if they release it in canada, if not i will have to import one.

I am an apple/siri guy and she wont be unemployed she still has her uses outside my home (such as voice recognition in my vehicle using siri hands free), but for my home itself the alexa looks like the solution everyone can use with simple to automate my home activities.

Commands to Alexa by default must include a room. Example would be:

[code]Alexa, tell Simple to Watch TiVo in the Living Room.

[/code]

But you can also say:

[code]Alexa, tell Simple to set the current room to the Living Room.

[/code]

Then:

[code]Alexa, tell Simple to Watch TiVo.

[/code]

So, any Alexa can control any room, and it can be set to a given room that won't require specification of a room in the command. You can also do things like:

[code]Alexa, tell Simple to set the volume to negative 30 in the Bedroom.

Alexa, tell Simple to mute the Bedroom.

[/code]

And many more.

Thank you.

How will this work controlling sonos?

Thanks

Thats great news that it is already in the approval process.

Picked up my Echo while the're on sale this week. Now waiting for the sync hub to arrive in the store. In the meantime, I hope the word Simple is configurable when telling Alexa what to do.

Thanks!

The invocation word we use is global and non-changeable as per Amazon. However, "Simple" was getting confused sometimes so it is now "my system". Three syllables is more reliable. Things changing rapidly, but clearly extremely close to going final. The user needs to learn the word(s) anyway so the key is to make it phonetically distinct and natural to say.

Thank you.

This has just been approved by Amazon! You can see it now in the Alexa app. We are now rolling out our side of this ASAP, but not clear yet it will all be live before this week basically runs out at the end of today. The primary piece needed is Simple Sync 3.1 which is going out to autoupdate somewhere between today and next Monday. There is also a specific guide for Alexa integration that will be posted soon. With Simple Sync pairing to your Simple Control account, and your Alexa app paired to Simple Control with the Simple Service active (or any Roomie Service renewing prior to 11/1/16), you will be able to issue commands from Alexa.

Note per prior messages, the final invocation word we settled on was "Simple Control" not the earlier possibilities. So example commands are:

[code]Alexa, tell Simple Control to Watch TiVo in the Living Room.

Alexa, tell Simple Control to set the volume to minus 45 d b in the Living Room.

Alexa, tell Simple Control to pause the Living Room.

Alexa, tell Simple Control to power off the Living Room.

Alexa, tell Simple Control to set the current room to the Living Room.

Alexa, tell Simple Control to Watch DirecTV.

Alexa, tell Simple Control to mute.[/code]

Thank you.

anxiously awaiting this functionality - I don't see it in Alexa app yet - should it be in "Connected Home"?

This just went live a moment ago. This integration guide covers requirements and usage information:

simplecontrol.com/wp-content ... oGuide.pdf

Thank you.

Any possibility that you'll be supporting accounts ordered via In App Purchases in the app store instead of from store.simplecontrol.com?

This hadn't clear this was not going to be supported if we order from the App Store at the time, I would have been happy to order from you if I had known this in advance. Alexa/Echo doesn't recognize I have an account as a result. Help?

There's no relation between how you purchased anything and the account needed for Echo. Many features including Remote Access and Echo integration require use of the Sign In feature inside Simple Control. It has no necessary relation to purchases. If you did purchase Simple Service or Simple Sync via our website, then it is necessary to use Sign In. The accounts themselves are free. Make sure Simple Service (or a Roomie Service renewing prior to 11/1/16) is active, you are signed in to Simple Control, and paired with Simple Sync (you should see the Simple Control icon not the globe icon in the Sync Status panel of Simple Sync) before pairing your Echo in the Alexa app. See the Echo Integration Guide in the Setup Guides section of the knowledgebase for detailed instructions and use the Contact Support button inside Simple Control if you need assistance.

Thank you.

Are there any plans to make simple control use the connected home feature?

The Connected Home section in Settings was pre-Amazon Skills API, a way to fast track a couple of things to market basically. I would anticipate it is far more likely everything in the future will be in the Skills area and they will eventually remove "Connected Home", it only supported a few devices anyway.

Thank you.

I am not a expert but isy now has echo capability. They first did it with a skill and now are using the connected

home feature. Check out there forum.

I did check out the forum and that's not true:

forum.universal-devices.com/topi ... -vs-skill/

Note that Amazon's old Connected Home stuff that was pre-Skills only supported Lighting. So if your only goal is to turn on a light, you can skip two words in your syntax, there is the whole benefit.

Instead, Simple Control's skill provides huge amounts of control, there's just no comparison.

It sounds like what you actually want is what I actually want – the ability to have a default skill for all commands so that you can skip the words "tell Simple Control" because 99% of commands go to Simple Control anyway. I agree. Safe to say Amazon will make many improvements over time and those improvements will almost certainly be focused on the Skills section.

Thank you.

I want to say congratulations on the nice work here Will and team. I now have my dream scenario implemented where I've leveraged Simple Control, an ISY, Echo and Simple Sync to fully control things by voice and through the Simple Control interface. This includes doing HTTP Posts (JSON) from ISY to Simple Sync (soon to be hub) which allows me to leveraging both connected home and skills to do some pretty cool stuff. Couple cool examples:

"Alexa, turn vacation mode on" - Put's all ISY connected and Roomie controlled items in vacation mode as we head out the door.

"Alexa, turn bedtime on" - TV's off, night lighting on, environmental adjustments

"Alexa, turn party time on" - Lights on, music thumping :smiley:

"Alexa, tell simple control to..." There are a lot of these

One thing that would be nice to be able to do is to have shorter assignable phrases. Do you know if there's any plan for Amazon to enable this? I'd love to be able to map language to a default skill so I can simply say things like "Alexa, let's party", "Alexa, Good Morning", "Alexa, Good night". Love to get rid of the On/Off taxonomy where possible.

Keep up the great work!

Dave

Got my hub today. Took a bit but got things working. However, I found I cannot address game consoles. I'm trying to address by saying "tell Simple Control to turn on PS4", "...Xbox One", or "...Wii U". Any advice? Also, would it be possible to address favorite channels on television? For instance, "tell Simple Control to change channel to ESPN".

Lots of additional phonetic Activity names are being added, including for game consoles.

Adding channel tuning support is top of the list for Echo right now. Both of these should be pretty soon. No Apple approval needed, but Amazon has their own approval any time we change phonetics.

Thank you.

Ah, yes channel tuning support would be at the top of my request list. Just set up the hub with my Echo yesterday and everything has been working just as advertised. The only two things I found wanting was the ability to ask Alexa to change the channel up, down, or to a specific station once the TV activity was turned on. Still have to pull out my smart phone or pad to change the channels.

Also, excited to see if there will be support for once the Apple TV activity has started, if I could ask Alexa to play a specific movie in my library or ITunes.

Again, I'm loving the Echo integration with Simple Hub as the only thing it was lacking for me for the longest time was the ability to control my TV activities through Simple Control.

Alex

Most of that is already live. Please see the Announcements forum:

announcements/alexa-channel-tuning-and-skip-simple-sync-3-3-0-t11223.html

The Echo Integration Guide is not yet up to date with the new Channel Tuning and Skip/Replay improvements we just deployed.

Thank you.