How to utilize Alexa's room detection to display a card on that closest tablet? Let me explain...

[fierce mauve]

Hello! If this question would be better suited somewhere else, please let me know and I will move over there. The reason I chose automation is because I want to create an automation that will show me a particular room on a tablet that would be standing next to.

For example: I am in my bedroom (I have a tablet in every room), and I want to see the livingroom on that tablet. I have created pop ups for each room that is a photo of the room and it has various things I can tap on, such as lights, plugs, curtains, etc, that I can control.

I want the ability to show the particular room on the individual tablet, and not on all the tablets in the house. So far, I have been able to do this by selecting the individual tablet in the automation. But of course, this isn't what I am looking for. Meaning, I have set it up to show the livingroom on my desktop (using browser_mod), but it's not helpful if I am in my bedroom and want to see the livingroom card. I have to be on my desktop in order to see the automation work.

All that said, isn't there a way to piggyback off of Alexa's room detection, or whatever it's called, where she recognizes which device you are closest to, and using that detection, have the appropriate tablet display what I am asking for? It seems to me there is should be a way, albeit, reading a sensor that gets activated by the Alexa device and then being pre-programmed to display on the nearest tablet. Seems rather simple, but like everything else with Home Assistant, it never is. But very rewarding when you accomplish what you are wanting.

Thanks for your time and hope to hear back with some suggestions!! Cheers!

[hallow silo]

That’s not possible with Alexa. The best you can do would be to use BLE room/presence detection. You would setup BLE proxies in each room and then have them detect the closest device (phone or watch).

Another thing you could do is create a separate dashboard for each room and use something like Fully Kiosk to only display that dashboard.

[fierce mauve]

Thanks for your quick reply!

Hmmm, I don't know anything about proxies so I will look into that, thanks!

As for the second suggestion, when you say separate dashboard, are you referring to the tabs at the top of my dashboard? Probably a stupid question but I'm still a novice with Home Assistant and still learning.

In reading what you suggested, I not sure I follow how if I am in the Kitchen for example, and want to see the bedroom card pop up so I can control the lights in there, this would be one example. 5 minutes later I could ask to see the bathroom card (still in the kitchen), so Fully Kiosk could do something like this?

[hallow silo]

Not the tabs, but completely separate dashboards (that would appear in the sidebar).

But, based on what you want, the only way to do something like that would be with proxies. But, if you are in the kitchen, how would it know to show you the bedroom if you aren’t in there?

[fierce mauve]

Because I use Alexa to display the bedroom card. It then pops up.

[hallow silo]

Using the silk browser?

There’s no way to have Alexa use a routine to say which device you are closest to. That doesn’t exist as a routine trigger or any way to expose that to HA.

[fierce mauve]

No, currently I have it setup using browser mod on my PC (Chrome) but I just tried taking a video but it's not working.. ugh... let me fix it.

[hallow silo]

I know what you mean. So, with browser mod you might be able to capture which device you are actually using, but it would only happen when you interact with the device in question. It’s still not going to know that you’re in the kitchen, but only want to see the bedroom cards.

The only way I’ve seen anyone pull off something like that is with BLE proxies and something like Bermuda. That’ll tell you which room you’re in.

[fierce mauve]

Well this is where I was hoping we could piggy back off of Alexa because she can detect which room you're in based on the closest device. 😦

Okay. I will do some research into proxies... never heard of Bermuda

[hallow silo]

Amazon doesn’t make that available. There’s no way to piggyback on it. They don’t even make it available as a routine event on their side.

[fierce mauve]

Is there a sensor I could use of hers that gets triggered when she does something? Sorry if that doesn't make sense.

I've checked entities and there is one but it says NULL all the time

[hallow silo]

If you’re using AMP, there’s a last spoken to device entity, but it breaks often. The AMP integration is in a really bad state.

Yup

[fierce mauve]

I know. It's sad because it's very robust and very helpful! I wish I knew how to code, I would be all up in there fixing things for people. 😦

[hallow silo]

I’d be surprised if the AMP integration lasts for much longer. There is work being done to replace it, but because it uses non-official APIs from Amazon, it’s a nightmare to code.

lol

I actually just ripped Alexa out of my house recently.

[fierce mauve]

Oh. I see. A lot of my automations are based on it. LOL.. I will be up sh*t creek without a paddle soon by the sounds of it.

[hallow silo]

Hopefully there will be local voice assistant devices coming out to replace that.

🔜

But, in the meantime, look into using proxies. They are supported and a lot of people are using them for this sort of thing.

[fierce mauve]

I did try to set up a voice assistant in Hass but it didn't seem very appealing and wasn't as good as AMP so that's why I went with AMP. Not to say I wouldn't switch, but it would have to improve a lot or me to switch.

[hallow silo]

There’s work being done on that. 😊

[fierce mauve]

Okay! Will do! Thank you for your time this morning!! I appreciate your insight and suggestions!!

[hallow silo]

Anytime! Happy to help!

[fierce mauve]

Cheers! 🤜

[fierce mauve]

I think I may have a workaround. So far it's working! I created a input_boolean using the name of the room I am in, then saying what card I want to display.

Ex: input_boolean.show_me_kitchen_to_livingroom

I expose that to AMP.

I create a routine in AMP that when I say, "Alexa, Kitchen - Show Me The Livingroom" it triggers that boolean to ON. Based on that trigger, I then use browser mod to display Livingroom on the Kitchen tablet.

[fierce mauve]

Hey.. I am afraid I am receiving errors now in my config when I view it in the Studio Code Server...

template:
  - trigger:
    - platform: homeassistant
      event: start
    - platform: time_pattern
      hours: "0"
    action:
      - action: google_generative_ai_conversation.generate_content
        data:
          prompt: Generate a funny, sarcastic descrption of New Year's Eve. Do not include the name of the holiday in the response and generate a single response only. You can use markdown formatting and emojis in the response.
        response_variable: output
    sensor:
      - name: New Years Eve Description
        state: "{{ now() }}"
        attributes:
          message: "{{ iif('text' in output, output['text'], 'Error Generating Response') }}"

[hallow silo]

You can ignore those.

[fierce mauve]

Okay. Is there anything I can do to get rid of those errors? Whenever I see errors in my config in the studio code server, I always try to eliminate them because they annoy me. LOL

[hallow silo]

They aren’t errors. It’s most likely that the plugin is confused.

[fierce mauve]

I just realized, I posted these last couple comments on the wrong post. 😦