#Alexa and Notifications

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

jaunty halo
#

I am having no luck at all with getting Alexa to make notifications my home assistant. I have installed the Alexa Devices integration, I have install the Alexa Media Player, I have tried everything I can find in a video on youtube and entities just say unavailable. Everything is up to date but nothing works. My devices generaly all say Unknown for 'Announce' and 'Speak'. Diagnostic says it's connected. Looks like it just bounces between unknown and unavailable.

What the heck can I can to get this working?

image.png
prisma hare
#

If I remember correctly it’ll say Unknown until you send the first message, and then it’ll show the date of the last message.

Here’s a script I use for sending a message to one of my echo devices:

sequence:
  - if:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ broadcast_type == 'Announce' }}"
    then:
      - variables:
          entity_target: notify.echo_spot_announce
    else:
      - variables:
          entity_target: notify.echo_spot_speak
  - action: notify.send_message
    metadata: {}
    data:
      message: "{{message}}"
    target:
      entity_id: "{{entity_target}}"
alias: Send Message to Echo Spot
description: Sends a given message to the Echo Spot
fields:
  message:
    selector:
      text: null
    name: "Message:"
    description: Enter the message to send
    required: true
  broadcast_type:
    selector:
      select:
        options:
          - Announce
          - Speak
    required: true
    name: "Type:"
    description: Select the type of message
    default: Announce
jaunty halo
#

that works... thank you. Now lets say i want to just have a button called Dinner that just announced that it's dinner time. I just want to hit the button and have it announce it. Sounds dead simple, but I am new to this and old dogs can learn but it rakes longer.

runic canyon
#

When you say "button" what do you mean? A physical device, a button entity, or a "button" on your HA Dashboard?

prisma hare
#

You could do it a couple of ways. One, you could create a standalone script that sends a hardcoded message and broadcast type (announce/speak) to the echo device:

sequence:
  - action: notify.send_message
    metadata: {}
    data:
      message: Dinner
    target:
      entity_id:
        - notify.echo_spot_announce
alias: Dinner
description: Sends a dinner message to the Echo Spot

Or you could send a hardcoded message and broadcast type to the original script above.

sequence:
  - action: script.send_message_to_echo_spot
    data:
      broadcast_type: Announce
      message: Dinner
alias: Dinner
description: Sends a dinner message to the Echo Spot

The first method is easier, although if you had several of these hardcoded message scripts it would be easier to change the target if you just had to change it in one place.

Once you have a script you can then use it. Assuming you meant a dashboard button (see Digeridrew's question above), you can add it as ...

prisma hare
#

Button. (The bullhorn is the icon I use for my announcement entities.)

button.png
#

A badge at the top (the bullhorn again)

badge.png
#

A tile. (I included two samples, one with "feature content", one without.

tiles.png
jaunty halo
#

YOU Guys are awesome... I finally got a working button on my (yes) Dashboard. Had another thought though (feel free to tell me to get stuffed) about having a single button with a drop down list of announcements you could pick from and send it. Would cut down the clutter, but maybe wouldn't be used much by the rest of the family. My wife is not really into that whole thing. But she dislikes talking to alexa so maybe this would be better.

Thanks for your help, it was most appreciated. Still getting my feet wet with this whole thing. Just wish I would have started a long time ago.

prisma hare