Alexa Integration Questions

[thorn token]

Hello,

I have configured Alexa as per https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/alexa.smart_home/ with the dev account, custom skill, aws lambda, etc. - Including Proactive Events.

I am able to see the devices in the Alexa app that I expect to see and I can set up routines to trigger on HA events, so far so good.

What I am curious about is a couple of things:

1. Is there a way for me to configure HA to be where the automation lives and have it trigger alexa to do things instead of using Routines in the alexa app?

2. Is there a way to use the features from alexa_media_player (https://github.com/alandtse/alexa_media_player/) or is the more "native" integration and this one mutually exclusive?

3. Does the paid "home assistant cloud" offering provide anything additional that I am not able to accomplish using my setup? I have no issue with SSL certs, dns, etc. so I see no reason to pay for that service if I don't have to.

My goal is to create a very simple "beep" when a door is opened or closed and the list of available sounds in the Alexa app routines are very limited and I am unable to find a sound effect I like. In particular I would like to get access to the sounds available here: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/custom-skills/ask-soundlibrary.html

I would like as tight of an integration as possible here so there is minimal latency between door opening and sound playing. I am thinking that perhaps it might actually be better to just get some sort of speaker device and not use Alexa at all but if I can get this working I would be happy.

Thanks in advance.

[frozen isle]

1. It's a bit unclear what you mean on "trigger Alexa" from HA automation. You can, for example, create helper switch, and turn it on/off in HA, expose it to Alexa and add it there as routine trigger. Or turn it on/off in Alexa and use as trigger in HA automation.
2. They can be used together, but it's two different things. AMP does bring Alexa devices to HA, skill does opposite.
3. AFAIK, no. I still pay for NabuCasa to support devs, although i don't use any of paid features right now.

If you want to play some custom sound on Alexa from HA automation, you need only Alexa Media Player, and world-accessible HTTPS host with mp3 file (it can be HA). There are some disadvantages on using custom sounds (they should be converted to specific bitrate), more on that in AMP docs - but you definitely don't need skill to do that.

[thorn token]

What about the sounds in the Alexa library so that I am not dealing with an MP3 file or anything?

And on #1 - what I mean is essentially using automations on the HA side instead of alexa routines - so I can say if door is opened play X sound on Y echo and not even need to set up routines on the alexa side at all

[frozen isle]

Yes you can do that without converting.

[thorn token]

Is that only via the AMP thing though?

[frozen isle]

Might be AMP - you need the player.
Otherwise you can make routine in Alexa, that plays sound as action, and is triggered by some entity state change from HA.