Ask alexa something

[void wave]

how to add in automation a way to ask alexa to do something through home assistant without me needing to say the sentence, but home assistant will ask that sentence for me instead

[compact willow]

you can do this with the HACS integration "alexa media player"

example action call:

target:
  entity_id: media_player.MY_ALEXA_DEVICE
data:
  media_content_type: custom
  media_content_id: START A 10 MINUTE TIMER
action: media_player.play_media

change device entity and command as required

[void wave]

ty boss!

[compact willow]

no propblem, good luck!

[void wave]

i have a question, idk if you know the answer, basically, i made that when the trigger happens i say to alexa: “Alexa, ask Sound Stream to play Welcome Back Folder”.
Sound stream is a skill i added that play mp3s from dropbox, welcome back folder is just an mp3 file i have in it. Everytime it does it before playing the file it repeats saying “Playing Welcome back Folder”, is there a way to skip it and just go to the audio?

[compact willow]

i dont know but at a guess i would say: no probably not

[maiden marsh]

@void wave I vaguely recall that there are attributes that can be applied to Alexa speech. Maybe one of them, such as whisper I think, be used to make the statement be soft enough that it isn’t heard? See this link under announcements and SSML https://peyanski.com/alexa-and-home-assistant/

[void wave]

so you mean she will whisper the sentence and the play the audio file at normal volume?

[maiden marsh]

That was the idea. You'd need to experiment a bit, I suspect.