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Closed Alexa

Alexa Skill

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Comments

  • WathLamersWathLamers Member
    edited November 2017
     :(  very sad
    i was realy looking forward to this....  :'(  

    edit,   @Reinier ;  for what its word;   many thanks for your time invest.. 


  • SkorpionSkorpion Member
    edited November 2017
    I think this is a very weird discission looking at the fact that there isn’t a skill available at the moment that has the possibilities that this skill has. I hope that @Emile will reconsider because a lot of people including me were looking out for this skill.

    Thanks for all the hard work @Reinier and I hope the future will prove that all your work hasn’t be for nothing.
  • phil_sphil_s Member
    I can‘t get it @Emile! I was really looking forward to this skill. 
  • mruitermruiter Member
    Emile isnt on the forum so i took it to slack general
  • JerryvdvJerryvdv Member
    Very disappointed..  :(
    Thanks for the efforts Reinier!
  • vaderagvaderag Member
    mruiter said:
    Emile isnt on the forum so i took it to slack general
    Please keep us posted
  • mruitermruiter Member
    As expected not a single word from Emile. No worries. Someone scheduled a nice reminder in general that reminds him about it every day.
  • mruitermruiter Member
    edited November 2017

    Emile offcourse did not respond in General.
    He just deleted the reminder that was set and crawled back.

    But this are some official words from somewhere else...

    weejewel:
    Onze integratie komt er wel aan hoor :slightly_smiling_face:
    Overigens is er al een werkende Alexa integratie, dus jullie dots zijn niet nutteloos :wink:
    Yes, we weten dat er vraag naar is :smiley:
    Daarom staat het ook op de planning!

    Offcourse that brings us to the next question... What planning as there is no room for anything until way into q1 at best for anything else but Mobile Api and some more needed fixes on 1.5.6

    After that a lot soons where made.... Guess this one's also on the list also for sint juttemis.

    I wonder why they are dropping this almost finished project. Other projects already have a nice OAuth secret key.

    Who nows more info will come, but there you have the 4 offcial quotes that did not come in general.

    OOOOOOOOh my GOD


    Youre Dots are not useless...... WTFrack .. Nobody it its sane mind can be ok with the ok Alexa ask Homey circus.

  • mruitermruiter Member
    edited November 2017

    And after another push by Ted

    Of course, I'm glad you asked nicely

    We have not given Web API keys to Reinier, because we are planning on releasing an Alexa Smart Home skill ourselves. As we have no possibility to remove an unofficial Homey skill from the Alexa Skills listing, we are dependent on him to do so. And even if he does so, it will be very confusing for many users.

    We are also not yet giving out Web API keys as these really are an irrevocable 'master key' to any Homey when given access by a user. As we have not yet implemented roles and delegated access management yet (e.g. a webpage where you can manage your sessions), we currently only give out these keys to developers who have an established trusted relation with us. Remember, the Web API is still in bèta.

    I have told Reinier from the beginning that we will not hand out keys, so his behaviour is unexplainable to me. I did tell him we would like to see his source code so we can develop our skill faster, yet I haven't received any access to his skill's source either.

  • vaderagvaderag Member
    This is very frustrating. I've just recommended Homey on another forum due to this upcoming Echo skill update and now it's just closed down... I don't get it.
    That new purchaser is going to be disappointed.

    Given how much input the community needs to have in making Homey awesome I just don't get how they would just shut this down at the last hurdle.

    The existing skill is crap. Hell, I don't even have it enabled anymore as it's useless.

    Is there no way this can be released as a separate skill?
  • ReinierReinier Member
    @mruiter

    Interesting response. He was quite clear when he told that he was not going to use my code because it was easier If he did it himself, and besides that, why would I continue developing the app If I knew it I wouldn't get used or implemented. About the oauth key, I was already in contact with an ex-colleague of mine who was willing to help me out with a key before the whole project started. (I decided to hardcode my token later on because it was easier) Later on, Emile decided that it was better to implement my code because it was more convenient for users to use one app. 

    to all alexa fans, thanks for supporting me.
  • JohanKusterJohanKuster Member
    edited November 2017
    For the techies amongst us... You can use node-red on a Raspberry and install the contrib-alexa-local node. Give it a name in a flow and Alexa will find it as a device. Multiple devices are possible. You can put it on or of and dim it. You can then send a message to Homey any way you want. Many possibilities to talk to the rest of the world from within Node-red. It is also great in receiving data. Beautiful software for free. 
    Usage screenshot
  • vaderagvaderag Member
    That looks great and would be awesome to have something like that baked in to Homey as an app - you might not want everything voice controlled (potentially accidentally)

    Sadly however I don't have a Pi and I don't have the time to learn how to set it up right now, so without something simpler like what is already done but not being allowed to be released would be ideal

    I'm using HA Bridge at the moment which seems to work well
  • RickmannRickmann Member

    Very sad to hear this @Reinier , i was also looking forward to this better integration of the Alexa skill.

    Sadly @Athom @Emile that they do not want to implement this, all the work done by a member for nothing.

    Nice that a Community driven project more and more ignores the wishes of it's Community. :(

  • swtttswttt Member
    Another work-around for people with a synology (or any docker server) could try the tutorial i posted somewhere here on the forum: https://forum.athom.com/discussion/3031/advanced-link-ha-bridge-to-homey
  • MbenzNoMbenzNo Member
    Very sad to hear @Reinier, and I really appreciate the effort You have made in this, even if it was not released.
    But hopefully this have been an eyeopener for Athom that their own Alexa skill is just annoying and borderline useless.  I hope they also are working on a proper Google Home integration, as I think Googles Voice assistant have even better potensial.

    I guess that it have been a company decision to not fully integrate third party Voice recognition due to the fact that this will invalidate or give an impression that Homeys own much advertised voice recognition is not good enough. (Which it actually is...)
  • EmileEmile Administrator, Athom
    I have already explained our reasoning in Slack, and I will elaborate on that, because it is important for us that the community understands why we make certain decisions.

    As mentioned in the Software Status, we have a 'feature stop' until the end of 2017, which means that we will solely work on stability and bugfixes. Mostly Z-Wave, Zigbee and Homey Apps. This also means we do not have time to review community projects using Web API keys (which are still in beta).

    The Alexa Smart Home skill is planned for Q1 2018, as this is a new feature and requires a lot of work to get right. As Amazon only allows one skill per brand in their store, and to remove a skill that uses the Homey brand takes a lot of effort, we are very protective of a great user experience.

    From the beginning we have communicated with Reinier that his skill would never go live. One of our employees said he could give him keys, however this was on a friendly basis and did not pass our approval process yet. A day later, when this employee asked me about it, I explained the reasoning and that we would not give these keys away, and Reinier was again informed.

    However, Reinier did continue the development of his skill, with the knowledge of it never going live. Regardless he also collected donations, which is something we do not agree on.

    Because we do support community development, but given the Amazon-situation, we have communicated to Reinier that we would take a look at his code when we were starting the development of our own Alexa Smart Home skill. We did not receive any source code as of yet, yet we are still open to receiving this to speed up our own development.

    Please keep in mind we cannot do everything at once. On one hand, we are being accused of creating new features instead of fixing bugs, and on the other, we are found guilty of not developing an Alexa Smart Home skill fast enough. 

    We try to balance every decision we make carefully, weighing the pros and cons. Time is never on our side, so the best we can do is decide carefully where to focus on.

    The only thing I ask of you, the community, is to communicate in a respectful manner, even when you disagree with our decisions. Because there are so many different wishes, we can never make everyone happy. So the only thing we can do is figure out together a way to evolve Homey as best as we can.
This discussion has been closed.