This is the forum archive of Homey. For more information about Homey, visit the Official Homey website.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Alexa
Comments
<bitch mode >
@Emile, @Annemarie
The wording in the description really does not sound correct
Description
Using this skill, Homey can be talked with through spoken to by Amazon Alexa. ...
or
Using this skill, Amazon Alexa gains the ability to interact with your Homey
</bitch mode >
Can anyone comment on the reason why Athom chose to address Homey as "Alexa, Ask Homey.." instead of directly?
e.g. the way that OpenHAB works for example : "Alexa, turn on Kitchen "
Is this is a system limitation or does it offer more flexibility, any insights are appreciated
ALMOST everywere. so perhaps there are exeptions.
For now, i am very happy whit this. cant wait to buy one and experiance.
iobroker
openhab
hue
mydlink
Magenta
smarthome austria
that means many smarthome products need no "Alexa says/ask xxx to"
By skipping 'ask Homey', we have to use the Alexa smart home api, which is very, very limited. Because Homey features our own advanced natural-language-processing software, it's a better solution to use that instead.
can you already ask to put light on only in living?
edit, or is this first to make in homey itself?
great
cant wait. tx for the info
worked via web
did you change to english, is homey responding?
(iḿ getting a homey got your message but did not respond)
The wiki app, has the following: "(look\\s?up|find|search(\\sfor)?|tell(\\sme|\\sus)?\\sabout)", and some others. This means the app will respond to "look up", "tell me","tell me about","tell us about","search for", without the need to specify all of the combinations.
The speech to text part has not changed in v1.2 to the best of my knowledge.
To use Alexa Homey needs to be English indeed, until Alexa can talk Dutch (NL). Homey is indeed responding to certain more complex speech input (not by text) in 1.2. Will post video of it later
- First select active Homey (have 3 homey's under my control, Kitt is the Homey you see, the active Homey will be used by Alexa)
- Turn on all lights (standard flow)
- Ask Homey to say Hello (custom flow with logic card)
- Turn off all lights
- Turn on lights in kitchen (light in view is not in kitchen but in bedroom zone, placed for test)
- Turn on lights in bedroom ( light in view is in bedroom zone, placed for test)
- Turn off all lights
- Direct question at Homey asking turning lights on in bedroom
What can be wrong?
P.S.: I am aware that Homey speech does not work then, but you would not need that if it worked through Alexa.
I'm not sure I read the Amazon press release correctly, but here's what I understand:
Alexa is being made available to any manufacturer, totally free of charge. all it takes to embed Alexa into any device is a few lines of code. in other words, it would be the simplest thing in the world to have Alexa on board Homey functioning as its speech-to-text engine!
I realise it probably ISN'T as simple as that, and I'm sure Athom might be reluctant to forfeit some of Homey's individuality but, honestly, Homey powered by Alexa would be a world-beating product and, if Alexa is going to be everywhere anyway I don't think it would damage Homey's identity.
I am disabled, and without reliable speech recognition I'm afraid Homey is useless for me. "Integration" with Amazon Dot is an unnecessary complication and flies in the face of what Homey should be.
If we are all going to have to buy an Amazon Dot just to get acceptable speech recognition then I see that as a failure. However, if Alexa really can be built into Homey then I think that would be a wise business decision.
Amazon has made its hardware available to build it in any device. If Athom would do this, they need to ship new Homeys. It would be an understandable upgrade for future Homeys, but not something they could do now for existing Homeys.
So what they did is that they made an Alexa skill so people with Alexa's can use it with Homey and have other Alexa features available for 60€.
They are also working on Google Assistant integration for people with Android wear and Google Home.
They already integrated Facebook messenger, as Mark Zucherburg has said it to be the future (I don't believe in texting my house, but sure).
So I think they will integrate this in more products if they come on the market.
And maybe for some Homey becomes useless without the speech recognition, and an Alexa would do all the jobs in controlling their home (and then Homey has failed
I absolutely agree about how useful all of Homey's capabilities are, but voice recognition was also a central part of its appeal… There have been several threads expressing frustration at the slow progress of improvement in this regard.
I managed to find the original press release, which I'll copy below. As you can see, it doesn't involve any hardware at all, just a few lines of code. As I said, I'm absolutely SURE it won't be anywhere near as simple as I'm making out, (I don't know anything about this sort of thing), but its potential seems too huge to ignore…
Press Release
A free set of APIs allows developers to add Alexa to their devices—any device with a speaker, a microphone, and an Internet connection can integrate Alexa with just a few lines of code
Developer preview starts next month
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 25, 2015-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Alexa is the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon Echo, a new category of device designed around your voice. Today, Amazon announced that hardware developers can use the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) to integrate Alexa into their Internet-connected devices with only a few lines of code. No experience with natural language understanding or speech recognition is required. The Alexa Voice Service is free—learn more and sign up to be notified when the preview for developers is available at https://developer.amazon.com/AVS.
Examples of what developers can create with the Alexa Voice Service include:
“Today, we’re excited to open up the Alexa Voice Service to any device maker that wants to add Alexa into their products—for free,” said Greg Hart, Vice President, Amazon Echo and Alexa Voice Services. “We’ve made adding Alexa incredibly easy for developers—any device with a speaker, an Internet connection, and a microphone can integrate Alexa with just a few lines of code. From start-ups to established companies, we can’t wait to see how developers integrate Alexa.”
Alexa is the brain behind Amazon Echo, a new category of device designed around your voice. Echo is hands-free and always on—ask for information, music, news, weather, and more from across the room and get results or answers instantly. Alexa is built in the cloud and leverages AWS to continue to learn and add functionality over time—in the last seven months Alexa has added Pandora, Audible, traffic, sports scores and schedules, control of connected devices like WeMo and Philips Hue, IFTTT, and more. When a developer uses the Alexa Voice Service to integrate Alexa into their device, their product also gets the benefit of updated capabilities that are added to Alexa, thus constantly improving the device over time.
Here are a few of the hardware makers who are using AVS to integrate Alexa into their products:
Wink, the quick and simple way to connect you and the products you rely on in the home, is using AVS to enable customers to control and monitor their connected home using only their voice. “Amazon is helping us create an even more simple and intuitive way to control your smart home—with your voice,” said Nathan Smith, CTO of Wink. “By integrating Alexa into our platform, customers will be able to manage their home—everything from turning on lights, locking doors, controlling temperature, and opening blinds—just by asking. We see huge potential and are excited to make the smart home even more accessible.”
Scout Alarm, a new breed of home security that customers can install and manage themselves, is using AVS to enable customers to manage their home security using voice. “We’re thrilled to use the Alexa Voice Service to integrate Alexa with Scout to support voice control capabilities,” said Dave Shapiro, CTO at Scout. “Alexa opens new ways for our customers to interact with their security system—ways not yet seen in our industry. By simply speaking to Alexa as they leave the home, customers can arm their system, or remotely check in on the security of their home using voice commands. Advanced home security has never been this simple, easy or available to more people; we are excited that Scout customers get to experience the convenience of Alexa.”
Toymail, the creator of Wi-Fi connected toys that send and receive voice messages for families, is using AVS to enable families to exchange voice messages using Alexa. “Toymail creates toys that help families stay connected with loved ones, without more screen time,” said Gauri Nanda, Co-Founder of Toymail. “Using Alexa Voice Service, Toymail customers can use their voice, in addition to our mobile app, to deliver fun messages and content to family members anywhere, anytime. For example, a dad can ask Alexa from the kitchen ‘Tell Ben: ten more minutes before dinner.’ And, we’re excited to add Alexa to our Mailman toys—just say ‘Alexa, read a story’ and the family can enjoy a bedtime audiobook together via the Mailman’s speakers.’”
The free Alexa Voice Service will be available as a developer preview starting next month—learn more and sign up to be notified when it is available at https://developer.amazon.com/AVS.
Amazon also today introduced the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), a collection of self-service APIs and tools that make it fast and easy for developers to create new voice-driven skills and capabilities for Alexa. With a few lines of code, developers can easily integrate existing web services with Alexa or, in just a few hours, they can build entirely new experiences designed around voice. For example, an Internet-connected sprinkler system can integrate its sprinklers with Alexa, so a customer can say, “Alexa, ask my sprinkler to water my lawn for 15 minutes.” Read the press release: www.amazon.com/ASK.
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View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150625005700/en/
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We have absolutely no clue if switching to Amazon's voice software will help Homey or not, and we also do not know if Athom tried this already or not.
edit it is seven looked it up
Two in Homey.
Point is the same. We don't know if the voice control is affected most by the state/amount/quality/location/echo-proneness of the microphone(s) or by the software. If it can be solved by better software, then yes, using Amazon can help.